Love At First Dream
Dark!Daeron The Drunken X Reader
Summary: At a royal feast, a noblewoman slips away for air and crosses paths with a drunken prince who becomes fixated on her in a single night.
Part two is out!
CW'S: Rape/Non-Con, Forced Marriage, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Abuse, Gaslighting, Obsessive Love, Victim Blaming, Psychological Horror, Marital Rape, Power Imbalance, Dark Fic.
WC: 7.8K
The Great Hall of the Red Keep was a living beast of heat, noise, and light.
It roared with the voices of a thousand lords and ladies, the clatter of golden plates, and the soaring notes of minstrels hired to celebrate King Daeron the Second Targaryen’s seventy-second nameday. You sat with your family, the Lovelaces of the Reach, your house’s sigil—the checkered silver and blue—embroidered proudly on your father’s doublet. Your mother sat to your left, fanning herself languidly, and your younger brother was already in his cups, cheering at a juggler with his mouth full of roasted swan.
You had smiled until your cheeks ached. You had danced with a Hightower, politely declined a second dance with a young Rowan heir who stared at your neckline rather than your eyes, and received a very formal, very tedious compliment from a knight of House Webber about the "radiant dawn" of your hair. Your family was powerful, your father the Lord of the Uplands, and you, his eldest daughter, were a prize many in the Reach and beyond had already sought. You were pretty; you knew this. You were sweet; you tried to be. But being pretty and sweet at a royal feast meant being on display, and the weight of all those gazes had begun to press on your chest.
A bead of sweat traced a path down your spine beneath your silk gown, a lovely thing of pale blue that your mother had said brought out your complexion. The braziers were burning too high. The perfume of a hundred bodies was cloying. The King himself looked tired, you noticed, his crown slipping slightly on his wizened head, his splendid sons gathered around him. Somewhere in the recesses of the hall, you had spotted another prince earlier, lean and sandy-haired, slouched in his chair with a wine cup he was treating as a lifeline. He had not stayed long in your mind then, just a fleeting image.
Now, you needed air.
"I'm just going to find the privy," you whispered to your mother, a harmless lie. She nodded, distracted by a discussion of Myrish lace with Lady Flowers. You slipped from your seat, a small, graceful shadow in pale blue, and made your way along the edge of the tables, past the servants rushing with flagons, and out through one of the tall, arched doorways that led to the gardens.
The cool air hit you like a blessing. King's Landing stank of fish and smoke and humanity during the day, but up here in the royal gardens, the night breeze carried the scent of roses, lavender, and moonbloom. The sky was a deep, bruised purple, scattered with a diamond dust of stars. You walked a few steps down a gravel path, the crunch of your slippers the only sound, and let out a long, shaky breath. Here, away from the press of bodies and the demanding eyes, you could finally think. The darkness was soft, broken only by the distant torchlight bleeding from the hall windows and the silver glow of the moon. You wandered towards a marble bench nestled beneath a sprawling canopy of flowering jasmine, your heart rate finally beginning to slow.
That was when he ambushed you, though you would not have called it that at first.
The sound was sudden and graceless, a heavy stumble, a choked-off curse, the scrape of a boot on gravel. A man lurched out from a side path, a dark, flailing shape, and crashed directly into you. The impact was a shock of solid weight and the sharp, sweet reek of wine. You stumbled back with a gasp, but your hands flew out instinctively, grabbing his arms to steady him. Your fingers closed around the fabric of a very fine wool tunic. His hands, clumsy and hot, grasped your shoulders to right himself, his grip too tight for a moment before he seemed to get his feet under him.
"Oh!" The exclamation was startled out of you, your heart hammering against your ribs. For a terrifying second, you thought it was some drunken guardsman, a danger in the dark. But then the man straightened, and the moonlight fell upon his face.
It was a young face, handsome in a sharp, slightly dissolute way. The planes of his cheeks and jaw were clean-shaven, showing a faint, hungry gauntness. His hair was a shock of sandy blonde, falling in lank, uncombed waves to his neck, the color of pale honey in the silver light. But it was his eyes that seized your attention, they were violet. A bright, startling, lucid violet, and they were fixed on you with an unsettling intensity that seemed to cut through his obvious inebriation.
You recognized him then. The slouched prince in the hall with his wine cup. It was Daeron, Prince Maekar’s son, the one they called the Drunken.
"Your Grace," you breathed, releasing his arms as if you’d touched a hot brazier. You dipped into a curtsy, your heart pounding a frantic rhythm. "I am so sorry, I didn't see—"
"No," he said, his voice a low, rough rasp. He still hadn't let go of your shoulders. His thumbs pressed slightly into the bone, not painfully, but with a possessiveness that made you freeze. "No, the fault is mine. I am a clumsy fool. A drunk fool, as they all say." He chuckled, a hollow, mirthless sound. He finally released you, taking a half-step back that was still not quite far enough. He swayed on his feet, his eyes never leaving your face. "Are you hurt, my lady…?"
"Lovelace," you supplied, your voice a little steadier now. "Lady Y/N Lovelace. And no, I am well. Truly. Are… are you well, Your Grace?"
He stared at you. The question seemed to hang in the perfumed air between you. The distant music from the feast, a cheerful reel, felt absurdly out of place. The violet eyes flickered, something unreadable moving in their depths. A slow, crooked smile, surprisingly charming in its boyishness, spread across his lips. "Yes," he said, the word drawing out like a caress. "Very well. Better now, in fact. Much better, now that you're here."
A surprised chuckle escaped you. The line was so practiced, so brazen, yet delivered with such a strange, dreamlike sincerity that you couldn't help it. You felt a faint heat creep up your neck. He was flirting. A prince was flirting with you. It was ridiculous. He was obviously very, very drunk. "Your Grace s-seems to have found the Arbor vintage to his liking," you managed, aiming for a light, polite tease. You were shy, and your words came out a little softer than you intended.
"The Arbor gold is piss," he declared with sudden, startling vehemence. "It dulls nothing. Does nothing." He waved a hand as if dismissing the entire kingdom's wine stock, then staggered a step closer. His eyes roamed over your face, a slow, consuming survey from your brow to your lips. "But you… you are not nothing. You are exactly as you should be. You are just as I knew you would be."
Your smile faltered. A tiny, cold pinprick of unease touched your spine. "I… I do not understand, Your Grace. I don't believe we have ever met."
"We haven't," he agreed, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial murmur. He lifted a hand, and for a heart stopping second, you thought he would touch your face. His fingers hovered near your cheek, trembling. "Not like this. Not with the day's sun on us. But I have seen you. Gods, I have seen you for moons now."
He said it with such a raw, ragged certainty that the pinprick of unease bloomed into a cold flower of dread. You took a small, instinctive step back. "What do you mean?"
He followed your retreat as if pulled by a string, closing the distance. The charmingly crooked smile was gone, replaced by a look of such intense, feverish focus that the beauty of his violet eyes became terrifying. They were no longer just bright; they were burning. He looked through you, past you, at some vision you couldn't see. "The dreams," he said, the word thick with dreadful meaning. "Every night, when I close my eyes, you are there. I am there. We are together."
He began to ramble, his voice rasping, his gaze taking on a delirious, unfocused shine. "I've seen us. I've seen your face, just like this, bathed in moonlight. I know the sound of your laugh before I've even truly heard it. I've seen you in my bed, your hair spread on my pillows. I've woken reaching for you, and you aren't there, and the emptiness is a pit I drown in. I've seen you in my arms, your belly great with my child, a son with your sweetness and my eyes. I was happy. You don't understand. You made me happy. The only peace I have ever known was you, in those visions. You are the only thing that quiets the dragon's roar in my skull."
He was speaking of a life you had not lived, a future you had not consented to, with the frantic, unshakeable faith of a zealot. The scent of wine on his breath was overwhelming, but it was the raw, desperate want in his eyes that stole the air from your lungs. The charming, clumsy drunk was gone. In his place was a man so completely unmoored from reality that he had built a world for the two of you, and he expected you to simply step into it.
Your mouth was dry. Your heart was no longer fluttering with shy amusement; it was a trapped, frantic bird beating against the cage of your ribs. "I… I apologize, Your Grace," you said, your voice a strained whisper. You couldn't manage the polite, courtly smile. Your face felt frozen. "I must… I must go. My family will be looking for me."
You turned, a sharp, desperate movement, your only thought escape. The gravel crunched beneath your slipper.
His hand shot out and clamped around your forearm.
It wasn't the clumsy, heavy grip of a stumbling drunk. It was iron. It was the coiled strength of a desperate man who had found his anchor and would not let it slip away into the dark. His fingers dug into the soft silk of your sleeve and the flesh beneath, a hard, unyielding circle of possession.
"Wait," he breathed, the word not a request but a command.
Before you could cry out, before you could twist away, he pulled. You stumbled back against him, your free hand flying up to brace against his chest, your palm flattening against the rapid, thundering beat of his heart. His other hand came up, his fingers plunging into the hair at the nape of your neck, tangling in the carefully arranged hair, tilting your face up towards his.
"Don't go," he murmured against your lips, his violet eyes swallowing the whole world. "Stay. You're finally here. Stay with me."
And then he was kissing you. It was not a gentle, questioning kiss from a would-be suitor. It was desperate, hungry, and punishing. His lips crushed against yours, tasting of sour wine and a terrifying, fervent longing. A scream had no time to form; it was punched from your lungs in a silent gasp as your back hit the cold, unforgiving gravel of the garden path. The jagged little stones bit into your palms, your spine, the bare skin of your shoulders where your gown had slipped. The scent of damp earth and crushed jasmine flooded your senses, but it was overpowered by him—the sour wine on his breath, the heat of his body as his weight settled on you, pinning you to the earth like a butterfly to a board.
He was on top of you. Prince Daeron. Your Prince Daeron, now, in the most horrible way imaginable. His lean body was deceptively heavy, pressing you down. He had thrown you in the ground. One of his hands was still tangled in your hair, now pulling painfully at the roots as your head was forced back against the gravel. The other hand was fumbling, clumsy but terrifyingly determined, at the bunched silk of your skirts, his fingers scrabbling at the fabric, hitching it up past your ankle, your calf. You could feel the cool night air on your stockinged leg and it was the most vulgar, violating sensation you had ever known.
"Please—" the word was a strangled, pathetic thing, torn from your throat. "Your Grace, stop, please—"
"Shhh," he hushed you, his mouth hovering over your throat, his voice a demented, gentle croon. "It's alright. It's meant to be. I've seen this. Just be still, my love. Let it happen. You want this. You came out here for me."
His words were a new kind of violence, twisting reality into his delusion. You didn't want this. You had come out here for air, for peace, and he was stealing both. Your free hand scrabbled uselessly at his tunic, pushing against the hard plane of his chest, but he was stronger than his drunkenness should have allowed, driven by a madman's conviction. The hand on your skirts found the bare skin of your thigh, and a sob of pure, primal terror wrenched itself from your chest.
His fingers dug into the soft flesh of your thigh, nails scraping like claws as he yanked the silk higher, exposing the lace edge of your undergarments. The night air bit at your skin, but it was nothing compared to the heat of his body grinding against you, his hips thrusting forward in erratic, insistent bucks. You twisted beneath him, legs kicking futilely against the gravel that scraped your back raw through your bodice, but he pinned your thigh down with his knee, forcing your legs apart.
"Mine," he growled, the word slurred with wine and madness, his free hand releasing your hair only to claw at the ties of his breeches. The fabric rasped open, and you felt the hot, rigid length of his cock spring free, slapping against your inner thigh like a brand. It was thick, veined, pulsing with his delusion fueled arousal, the tip already slick with precum that smeared across your stocking as he rutted against you.
No, no, this couldn't—your mind screamed, but your body betrayed you with shudders of revulsion. He shoved your undergarments aside with brutal fingers, tearing the delicate fabric, and the blunt head of his cock nudged at your entrance, probing the dry, unwilling folds of your pussy. You clenched instinctively, trying to bar him out, but he laughed—a low, unhinged sound—and thrust forward, forcing the first inch inside you.
Pain lanced through you, sharp and tearing, as your body resisted the invasion. He was stretching you, splitting you open without mercy, his lean hips snapping harder to bury more of his cock into your tightness. "Feel that?" he panted against your neck, teeth grazing your pulse. "You're so wet for me, my love. Taking me like you were made for it." Lies. You were dry, aching, every brutal push grinding against your inner walls like sandpaper, but he didn't care, didn't notice, lost in his fantasy.
He pulled back slightly, only to slam in deeper, his balls slapping against your ass with the force of it. You cried out, the sound muffled as his mouth crashed over yours, tongue forcing past your lips in a sloppy, dominating kiss that tasted of wine and violence. His hand returned to your hair, yanking your head back to expose your throat, where he bit down hard enough to draw blood, sucking at the wound while his cock pistoned in and out, claiming you with each vicious stroke.
Your hips bucked not in pleasure but in a desperate bid to throw him off, but it only drove him wilder. He groaned, the vibration rumbling through his chest into yours, his free hand mauling your breast through the silk, pinching the nipple until you whimpered. Faster now, his thrusts turned frenzied, the gravel digging into your spine with every impact, his cock swelling inside you as he chased his release, raping you under the stars with the conviction of a lover.
Your flailing hand, the one not pinned against his heart, struck something hard and rough in the flowerbed beside you. A rock. A jagged, fist-sized piece of decorative stone edging, half-buried in the soft earth. Your fingers closed around it with a strength born of absolute desperation. You didn't think. You couldn't think. You just acted.
With a guttural cry, you swung your arm up and smashed the rock against the side of his head.
The impact was sickening. A wet, heavy thud that juddered up your arm. Daeron let out a sharp, surprised grunt, his whole body jerking. His grip on your hair loosened, his weight shifting just enough. For a single, frozen heartbeat, he stared down at you with those bright violet eyes, and they were wide with a shock that looked almost, impossibly, like betrayal. Then they rolled back in his head, and he slumped sideways, a dead weight.
You didn't wait. You shoved him the rest of the way off, scrambling back like a crab in the gravel, your skirts tearing, your breath coming in ragged, animal gasps. He lay there, a dark, crumpled shape among the jasmine, a thin trickle of blood now visible at his temple. He was not moving. You didn't stay to check if he was breathing. You turned and ran, the bloody rock still clenched in your white-knuckled fist, fleeing the moonlit garden and the monster it had harbored.
—
The Tower of the Hand was a place of order, logic and the stern wisdom of Prince Baelor Breakspear. But on this night, its stately solar had become a pit of chaos, and you were at its center, still in your torn gown, the dirt and tiny cuts on your hands a testament, a silent accusation.
You were huddled in a high backed chair, a shawl someone had draped over your shoulders. Your mother was beside you, her arm a rigid bar of protection around your trembling frame, her face a mask of cold, terrible fury. Your father stood like a thundercloud in the center of the room. Lord Lovelace was a powerful man unaccustomed to being ignored or insulted, and his anger now was a living thing, crackling in the air.
"He ruined her!" your father roared, his face nearly purple, jabbing a finger at the two princes standing before him. Prince Baelor, tall and dignified, his Dornish complexion giving him a darker, more weathered look than his kin, held up a calming hand. Beside him stood Prince Maekar, Daeron’s father, a man built like a castle wall with a face of chiseled, simmering resentment. "He attacked my daughter! My only daughter! He has ruined her honor, her future! Who will marry her now? Tell me! Who will have her after your drunken, lecherous son dragged her into the bushes and—" He could not finish the sentence, his voice breaking into a choked sound of pure paternal rage.
Prince Baelor, stepped forward, his expression deeply troubled. "Lord Lovelace, I understand your fury. It is a righteous fury. No one in this room is unmoved by what your daughter has suffered tonight. But let us all speak with level heads, so that we may find a path forward that doesn't lead to a greater chasm between our houses." He was a good man, you knew. Everyone said so. He was trying to be one now.
"A greater chasm?" your father spat. "Your Grace, the chasm is already here! It is wide enough to swallow my daughter's entire future!"
Then Maekar spoke, and his voice was a low rumble of cold stone. "My son's story differs from your daughter's."
The silence in the room became absolute. Your mother's arm tightened around you. You looked up, your eyes red-rimmed, and saw Prince Maekar's hard, purple gaze looking not at you, but past you, as if you were a piece of faulty evidence.
"What?" your father whispered, the word a deadly, drawn out blade.
"Daeron tells a different tale," Maekar continued, implacable. The muscles in his square jaw flexed. He was a proud man, and the shame of this, of being called to account for his least-favorite son, had curdled into a dangerous defensiveness. "He claims that your daughter was not an unwilling victim. He claims she was waiting for him in the gardens. That she pursued him, and the encounter was… wanted. He says he is the one who was, in a sense, set upon."
A sound escaped you, a ragged, disbelieving gasp. "That's a lie!" you cried, your voice cracking. "A foul lie! I was escaping the feast, I was alone, he attacked me! I had never spoken to him before!"
Maekar's cold eyes flicked to you, and for a moment, the room was a battlefield of truths. "A maiden's virtue is a precious, fragile thing. And a young woman with many suitors might grow... ambitious. To catch a prince." The insinuation was a slap, a shimmering, poisonous thing in the torchlight.
"How dare you," your mother hissed, her voice low and lethal. "How dare you, a prince of the realm, slander my child in the same breath you defend her attacker."
Baelor raised both hands now, a sharp gesture for silence. "Enough. This is unseemly." He looked at Maekar, a deep, unreadable communication passing between the brothers. Baelor’s expression was one of profound disappointment, not just in his nephew, but in his brother’s stubborn rage. He was Hand of the King, and he had to weigh the good of the realm. A war of words between the Crown and a powerful house like the Lovelaces was a wound that could fester. "Where is Daeron? Bring him in."
The door opened, and a pair of household guards escorted him inside. You flinched violently, your body trying to curl into itself. He walked in under his own power, a stark contrast to your shattered composure. A small, neat bandage was on his temple, the white linen stark against his sandy blonde hair, now pushed back from his face, his eyes found you instantly. And in them, you did not see remorse or shame. You saw a dark, quiet, glittering calculation. Then, just as quickly, it was veiled by a mask of pained, honest confusion.
"Uncle. Father." His voice was quiet, a little hoarse, tinged with what sounded like genuine distress. He looked at your father, a deep, sorrowful bow of his head. "Lord Lovelace. There has been a terrible misunderstanding."
"Misunderstanding!" your father erupted. "You animal—"
"My lord, please, hear me," Daeron said, turning his hands up in a gesture of supplication. He did not look at you. "I understand your fury. I appear before you as a villain. I am drunk, I am wounded, and a maiden is weeping. The story paints itself, does it not? But I beg you, look deeper." He touched the bandage at his temple, a wince of pain crossing his face. It was masterfully done. "Lady Y/N and I… we met in the gardens. It was not by chance. There were looks between us in the hall. You can understand. She is…" He finally looked at you, and his voice softened to a heartbreaking, honeyed tone. "She is the most beautiful creature I have ever beheld. She confessed a desire to escape the feast, to find some air. She invited me to follow."
"No…" you whispered, shaking your head, tears spilling down your cheeks. "No, stop…"
"We talked. She was kind. So sweet. I was already in my cups, I admit this. Her sweetness felt like a balm." He was crafting his narrative, weaving a net of soft words. "There were… intimacies. Kind words. Promises. I believed her affections were true, she kissed me and pulled me onto the ground. And then, she grew... skittish, she heard some steps near us, she tried to leave, and I, a fool blinded by affection, tried to hold her, to calm her, and in her panic, she struck me." He gestured to the bandage again. "I do not blame her. The fault is mine, for I pushed my suit too fast, too ardently. I drank too much and frightened her. But I swear to you, by the old gods and the new, the affections were mutual before my clumsiness turned a tender moment into a terrifying one for her."
It was a masterpiece of lying. He painted himself as guilty only of too much love and too much wine, not of assault. And the worst part was, he could not be fully disproven. The story now had two versions, both with the same ending, you on the ground, him hit, you running. But his version made you a willing participant who panicked. His version made you a liar.
"He pursued me!" you screamed, your fragile composure shattering entirely. "He told me he had dreamed of me! He said he'd seen me in his bed, holding his child! He's a madman! He forced himself on me!"
Daeron flinched, a perfect portrait of wounded honor. "I may have spoken of dreams," he murmured, as if confessing a deep folly. "I am a Targaryen. We dream. I had a dream of a beautiful girl who would be my peace. And when I saw her, I was fool enough to speak of it. To hope, too soon. It is my curse. I did not mean to frighten her. I am not mad. I am only… in love."
The word hung in the air. In love. He was twisting the knife, claiming a sacred emotion as the root of his violence. Maekar’s grim face settled into a hard, believing mask. "You see?" Maekar said to the room. "A foolish, drunken attempt at courtship. Grossly mishandled, yes, and Daeron will answer to me for it. But not the brutal assault the girl describes."
"Your Grace, my daughter's gown was torn, her body bruised!, Her thighs are still darkened by blood!" your mother shot back, her voice shaking with rage.
"My son did not deny that he fucked her, but she was willing, your daughter should go bathe and pray," Maekar countered, willfully blind, desperate to protect his son's name, perhaps even believing the story because it was easier than the monstrous truth.
The arguing exploded again, a cacophony of raised voices. Your father's booming accusations. Maekar's cold defenses. Your mother's sharp, tearful interjections. And through it all, Baelor Breakspear stood with his hand over his mouth, his shrewd eyes moving between you and his nephew. You could see the war behind his brow. He didn't believe Daeron. A man that wise could see the cracks. But your word against a prince's? A public trial would tear the court apart, and what would it achieve for you? Your honor would be bandied about for the realm to gawk at. The Lovelace power was vast, but even they could not unmake a prince without shattering the fragile peace of the realm. He was weighing your life, your pain, on the scales of the kingdom.
Finally, into the loudest surge of the argument—your father bellowing, "I want his head! I want him sent to the Wall!"—Daeron himself spoke again. His voice was quiet, but it cut through the noise with surgical precision.
"I will marry her."
Silence.
Everyone stopped. You stared at him, your face draining of all blood. The horror of his statement was absolute. It was not a proposal. It was a sentence.
"Never," you breathed. "I will never."
Daeron turned to your father, and his face was a perfectly composed mask of duty and gentle remorse. "Lord Lovelace, we are at an impasse. You believe your daughter. I, knowing my own heart, must believe my own version of a night that went so terribly wrong. But whatever you believe, this is the truth: her honor is gone. This is my doing. And I am a prince of the blood. I am prepared to do the honorable thing. To restore what was… compromised. Let me make her a princess. Let me give her my name, my protection, everything I have. It is the only remedy that leaves no stain on anyone."
"He is a monster," you choked, turning to your father, clutching his arm. "Father, please. Don't make me. He tried to—he will do worse. I beg you."
Your father looked at you. He looked at Daeron. He looked at Prince Maekar, whose face was a thundercloud of resentment at the very thought of his son marrying into a family that had so publicly shamed him, but who also saw no other way to silence the scandal. He looked at Baelor Breakspear, who gave the smallest, most imperceptible of nods. It was the nod of a surgeon who must amputate a limb to save the body.
"It would… silence the scandal," your father said, the words dragged out of him, every syllable tasting like ash. He was looking at the political reality. A marriage. A royal match. It was, in the cold logic of Westeros, a victory snatched from disaster. His daughter, a Princess. But his eyes, when they met yours, were hollow with a grief he couldn't speak aloud. He was choosing the world's definition of honor over yours.
"Then it is decided," Maekar declared, his voice a hammer on an anvil, sealing your fate. He wouldn't look at you. He was drowning his own shame in a sea of cold formality.
"No!" you screamed, the sound tearing from your throat. "No, you cannot do this! He is a liar! Listen to me!"
But no one was listening anymore. Your mother was weeping silently. Baelor was staring at the floor, a good man who had just sanctioned a quiet atrocity. And Prince Daeron—your future husband—finally let his gaze settle fully on you. The mask of gentle remorse was still perfectly in place for the rest of the room, but behind the veil of his bright violet eyes, a spark ignited. A small, private, victorious flame. A flicker of triumph so pure and so dark it stole the very air from your lungs. He had lied. He had manipulated them all. And now, he had you.
Just as he had always dreamed.
—
The Stranger himself must have presided over your wedding, for no other god would claim such a union.
A moon had passed since that night in the Tower of the Hand. A moon of being a prisoner in your own life. Your father had not met your eyes since the decision was made. Your mother had held you as you sobbed, whispering that it would not be so bad, that many brides were frightened, that a prince was a great match. She did not believe her own words, you could hear the hollowness in them.
The wedding itself had been a lavish affair, the Great Hall of the Red Keep transformed into a garden of roses and lilies, the tables groaning under the weight of seventy-seven courses. The King had rallied enough strength to attend, a wizened, smiling specter who seemed to think this was a love match, a charming story of a prince smitten with a Reach beauty.
You had sat through the feast like a carved doll, your wedding gown a magnificent prison of ivory silk and Myrish lace, seed pearls sewn into the bodice in the pattern of your house sigil, a final, bittersweet tribute to the family you were leaving behind. Your face was a mask of serene beauty, because you had been trained since birth to wear such masks. But beneath the table, your hands were clenched so tightly in your lap that your nails drew blood from your palms. You barely ate. You did not dance. You did not speak unless spoken to.
And Daeron? Daeron was elated.
He had not touched a drop of wine the entire evening. He wanted to be present for this, he had whispered to you during the ceremony, his breath hot against your ear as he leaned in to kiss your cheek after the septon's blessing. "I want to remember every instant of this night." It had sounded like a threat. Throughout the feast, he was the perfect bridegroom, attentive, smiling, charming your parents until even your father's frozen anger began to thaw into a bewildered sort of acceptance. He made jests with his uncles, accepted the congratulations of lords and ladies with humble bows of his head, and looked at you with such open, adoring devotion that several older ladies were heard to remark what a shame it was that the poor boy had been so misunderstood his whole life. Look how love had transformed him.
It was the court that was drunk, you realized. Drunk on the romance of it. Drunk on the pageantry. Only you could see the truth behind his violet eyes. Only you could see the hunger.
And now, the feast was over. The well-wishers had finally retreated. The bawdy jests of the bedding ceremony had been mercifully waived, Prince Baelor's doing, a small kindness that had done nothing to ease the dread coiling in your stomach. You were alone with your husband in the marriage chamber, a vast, opulent room in Maegor's Holdfast, dominated by a monstrous bed with posts carved into the shapes of coiling dragons. Candles flickered on every surface, casting dancing shadows on the stone walls. The air was thick with the scent of incense, the cloying sweetness of roses. It was meant to be romantic. It felt like a tomb.
You stood in the center of the room, still in your wedding gown, your back to him. You could hear his footsteps on the carpet behind you, slow and deliberate. The predator who had already caught his prey and was savoring the moment before the kill.
"My wife," Daeron said softly, and the word was a caress that made your skin crawl. "My lovely, lovely wife. Do you know how long I have waited for this moment?"
You said nothing. Your throat was too tight, your tongue too heavy. You stared at the dragon carvings on the bedpost, tracing their snarling mouths with your eyes, trying to will yourself away from your own body.
His fingers touched your shoulder, and you flinched. He chuckled, a low, intimate sound. "Still so shy. It's endearing. But you need not be shy with me. Not anymore. We are one flesh now, in the eyes of gods and men." His hands moved to the laces at the back of your gown, and you felt the delicate pull as he began to work them loose, one by one. His fingers were steady, practiced. The silk loosened across your shoulder blades, and a whisper of cool air kissed your skin. "I have imagined this so many times. Undressing you. Unveiling you. I would lie awake at night, in this very bed, and picture it. The candlelight making your skin glow. The scent of your hair. The little sounds you would make."
He loosened another lace, and the gown sagged, the weight of it shifting. You clutched the bodice to your chest with both hands, a reflexive, futile gesture of modesty. He didn't seem to mind. He simply moved his hands to your hair, beginning to remove the pearl-tipped pins that held your elaborate coiffure in place. Each pin that fell was a tiny, metallic death knell.
"Do you know," he continued, his voice taking on a dreamy, confessional quality that you remembered with sickening clarity from the gardens, "do you know how many whores I have fucked in this bed?"
The word was a slap. Crude, deliberate, shattering the illusion of the gentle bridegroom. You stiffened, your breath catching in your throat.
"More than I can count," he answered himself, his fingers still working through your hair, freeing the locks so they tumbled down your back in soft waves. "My father sent me to the Street of Silk when I was five and ten, hoping it would make a man of me. Hoping it would cure me of my… peculiarities. My dreams,the measter told him it would make me grow out of them, that i simply had the mind of a child." A soft, humorless laugh. "It didn't work. But I learned other things. I learned the shape of a woman's body. The sounds they make when you please them. The sounds they make when you hurt them. I learned all of it."
He pulled the last pin free, and your hair cascaded fully down, a curtain of silk that he immediately gathered in his hands, lifting it to press his face into it, inhaling deeply.
"But here is the thing, my sweet," he murmured into your hair, his voice muffled, reverent. "Every single one of them… I chose because they looked like you."
The horror of it crawled up your spine like a spider. Your eyes were wide, fixed on the wall, but you could see it in your mind's eye years of him, a boy, then a man, haunting the brothels of King's Landing, picking through the girls like a merchant selecting wares. Searching for something. A shade of hair. A curve of a jaw. A pair of eyes that might, in the right light, look like yours. Before he had ever met you.
"Some had your hair," he went on, his hands dropping your hair and moving to the loosened gown, tugging it gently downwards. You resisted, your knuckles white on the bodice, but he was patient. He didn't force it. Not yet. He just talked. "or something close to it. A girl once, whose hair was almost perfect. I paid triple her price just to watch her let it down. But her eyes were wrong." The word was laced with contempt. "Others had your face, or something like it. Sweet. Innocent. I would make them pretend to be shy. Most whores can play a role if you pay them enough. But it was never right. It was never you."
He stepped around you, moving into your line of sight. You kept your eyes fixed straight ahead, refusing to look at him, but he stepped directly into your gaze, forcing you to see him. His violet eyes were luminous in the candlelight, his face handsome and terrible, he looked like a young god, and a devil, all at once.
"I kept hoping I would find you one day," he said, his voice dropping to a whisper of raw, terrifying sincerity. "I would walk through the streets of this city, searching every face in every crowd. I would visit every brothel, every tavern, every corner of the realm in my dreams. I knew you were out there. I knew it. The dreams showed me your face, night after night. Your eyes. Your smile. Your mouth. A face like a promise. And every whore I took to my bed was just a prayer. A prayer that the next one would be you."
He reached up and gently, so gently, pulled your hands away from the bodice of your gown. You were frozen, paralyzed by the grotesque intimacy of his confession. The gown fell, a whisper of silk pooling around your feet, leaving you in your thin linen shift. The candlelight traced the curve of your shoulders, the line of your collarbone, the rapid, panicked flutter of your pulse at your throat. He looked at you as if you were the Maiden herself descended.
"And then you came," he breathed. "At my grandfather's nameday feast. I saw you across the hall, and I knew. I knew immediately. The dreams had not lied. You were real. You were finally, finally real." His hand came up to cup your cheek, his thumb stroking the soft skin beneath your eye. You flinched, but didn't pull away. Where would you go? "I watched you all through the feast. The way you smiled at that fool Hightower. The way you toyed with your wine glass. The way you tucked a strand of hair behind your ear. Every gesture was a revelation. Every movement was exactly as I had seen it. And then you walked into the gardens, and I knew... I knew that was the moment. The moment the gods had ordained. The moment you would finally be mine."
"It was an ambush," you whispered, your voice cracked and raw, the first words you had spoken to him since the ceremony. "You followed me. You attacked me."
His smile was beatific, utterly untroubled by your accusation. "I call it fate. You call it what you will. The result is the same. You are here. You are my wife. And tonight…" His hand moved from your cheek, tracing down the column of your throat, over your collarbone, to the thin strap of your shift. He hooked a finger beneath it. "Tonight, you will be mine in every way. And so it begins."
He pulled the strap down over your shoulder, baring more skin. His eyes never left yours.
"The life I have dreamed for us," he murmured, leaning in, his lips hovering just above your own. "The children. The happiness. You will learn to love it. You will learn to love me. I have waited too long and sacrificed too much for any other outcome. You are my dream made flesh. And I am going to worship you… whether you want me to or not."
His lips crashed against yours, demanding and unyielding, his tongue forcing its way past your tightly pressed mouth. You twisted your head away, but his hand cupped the back of your neck, holding you in place as he devoured you, tasting of wine and possession. The kiss was a conquest, his teeth nipping at your lower lip until you gasped, giving him the opening to plunge deeper.
You shoved at his chest, your nails scraping against the fine silk of his tunic, but he only laughed softly into your mouth, the sound vibrating through you. With effortless strength, he scooped you up, your body light as a feather in his arms, and carried you to the massive bed. The dragon carved posts loomed like silent witnesses as he tossed you onto the feather mattress, the sheets cool against your heated skin.
The other strap of your shift followed the first, yanked down roughly, exposing your breasts to the flickering candlelight. Daeron's violet eyes darkened with hunger as he loomed over you, shrugging off his tunic to reveal a lean, muscled torso he climbed onto the bed, his weight pinning you down, knees straddling your hips.
"No," you whispered, but it came out as a plea, your hands pushing futilely at his shoulders. He captured your wrists in one large hand, stretching them above your head and anchoring them there with iron grip.
"Yes," he countered, his free hand roaming down your body, palming your breast and squeezing until you arched involuntarily. His thumb circled your nipple, teasing it to a hard peak, and he lowered his head to take it into his mouth. He sucked hard, his tongue flicking relentlessly, sending unwelcome sparks of pleasure shooting through you. You bit your lip to stifle a moan, hating how your body betrayed you under his skilled touch.
He released your nipple with a wet pop, trailing kisses and bites down your stomach, his beard scraping your skin. Hooking his fingers into the hem of your shift, he dragged the thin fabric up and over your head, leaving you utterly bare beneath him. The cool air pebbled your skin, but his gaze burned hotter than any flame.
"Look at you," he murmured, his voice thick with desire. "So perfect. My wife. My everything." His hand slid between your thighs, parting them despite your clamped legs. Fingers brushed your folds, finding you already slick—traitorous arousal from the unwanted stimulation. He smirked, dipping a finger inside you, curling it to stroke that sensitive spot deep within.
You gasped, hips bucking against your will as he added a second finger, pumping slowly, deliberately. His thumb found your clit, rubbing in firm circles that made your vision blur. "Feel that?" he whispered, his breath hot against your ear. "Your body knows what it wants, even if you fight it. Let me make you feel good. Let me show you the pleasure we've both been denied."
Tears pricked your eyes, but the building heat coiled tighter in your core, his fingers thrusting faster, scissoring to stretch you. He watched your face intently, adjusting his rhythm to chase every hitch in your breath, every tremble. When you clenched around him, he groaned in approval, free hand releasing your wrists to grip your hip, holding you steady as he worked you toward the edge.
"Come for me," he commanded, his mouth claiming yours again, swallowing your cries as the orgasm ripped through you. Your back bowed, thighs quivering, waves of unwanted ecstasy crashing over you. He didn't stop, drawing it out until you sagged, spent and shaking.
But he wasn't done. Shedding his breeches, his cock sprang free—thick and hard, the tip glistening. He positioned himself at your entrance, rubbing the head along your soaked pussy, coating himself in your release. "This is just the beginning," he said, eyes locked on yours. "You'll crave this. Crave me."
With one brutal thrust, he buried himself inside you, stretching you wide. You cried out, the fullness overwhelming, but he held still, letting you adjust, his hand returning to your clit to rub soothing circles. Slowly, he began to move, pulling out and slamming back in, each stroke angled to hit that spot again. His pace built, hips snapping against yours, the bed creaking under the force.
He fucked you relentlessly, one hand bracing beside your head, the other teasing your breasts, pinching nipples, tracing your curves. Pleasure built anew, forced from your body by his expert touch, his cock dragging along your walls with every deep plunge. You hated the moans spilling from your lips, the way your legs wrapped around him instinctively, pulling him deeper.
"That's it," he panted, sweat beading on his brow. "Take me. Feel how good we are together." His thrusts grew erratic, but he held back, grinding against your clit with each hilt, pushing you toward another peak. When you shattered again, clenching around him like a vice, he followed with a guttural roar, flooding you with hot cum, his body shuddering above yours.
He collapsed beside you, pulling you into his arms, his cock still twitching inside. "See?" he whispered, kissing your temple. "You liked it. And you'll like it more tomorrow. My dream… our dream."
The candles guttered low, the dragons silent, as exhaustion claimed you, trapped in his embrace, your body humming with aftershocks you couldn't deny.
