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Aemond Targaryen x Velayron!Reader

Description: Aemond Targaryen was cruel and ruthless, a Green Prince who fell in love with the Velaryon Ghost.

Warnings: This is AU,, so the dance happens but without Aemond. Smut, P-in-V, the feels for unrequited love but it’s just Aemond being Aemond. Mean!Aemond, cold toward the reader, oral female receiving. Aging up Aemond, he’s around the same age as Laenor/Reader, Pregnancy, mentions of childbirth not too much in detail, I lowkeyyy got carried away with this one. Kind of a slice of life?

Author’s Note: I literally have so many drafts! So I want to clear those out first! I wrote this almost a year ago! Happy Readings!

sometime at the beginning of the dance of the dragon

Location: Pentos

Before Viserys I death, Targaryen Golden Era

──────── Driftmark ────────

The dawn in Pentos never arrived with the sound of trumpets or the screaming of dragons. It came with the rhythmic thrum of heavy ropes snapping against wooden masts and the low, melodic chanting of dockworkers hauling crates of lysene silk. You stood on the stone balcony of the manse, a structure of pale marble that seemed to grow directly out of the sea cliffs. The banners of House Velaryon—the silver seahorse on a field of turquoise—snapped sharply in the salt breeze, a silent declaration of who truly commanded these waters.

You moved through the morning with a quiet, deliberate grace. Your voice was never raised, yet when you walked the long wharves, the chaos of the port settled into an orderly hum. You did not carry a sword; the weight of a ledger was enough to command the respect of captains who had sailed the Seas. They knew the Ghost of Pentos saw every coin, every grain of salt, and every bolt of cloth that crossed her docks.

In the solar, the air smelled of dried parchment and the sharp tang of ink. You sat at a desk of dark ironwood, your fingers tracing the wax seals on letters from Driftmark. Your father’s sprawling, restless script spoke of blockades and brewing storms in the Gullet, of a realm preparing to bleed. You read them with a calm, steady gaze, your expression as unreadable as the horizon.

You dipped your quill and began to write, your hand fluid and sure. You did not draft manifestos or declarations of war. Instead, you coordinated the shipment of winter wheat to the Stepstones and moved gold through the Iron Bank to ensure the Velaryon fleet remained the best-fed and best-clothed navy in the known world. You were the silent engine of their survival, providing the sustenance they needed while refusing to partake in the hunger for the throne.

By midday, you were at the tide line, watching a massive carrack pull into the harbor. The sailors looked down at the lone woman on the shore, clad in simple sea-grey wool with a single strand of pearls at her throat. You were a Velaryon of the sea, anchored by the tides, thriving in a peace you had built with your own two hands.

Soon, The evening mist had begun to roll in from the Narrow Sea, draping the marble spires of Pentos in a soft, grey shroud. You sat on the edge of the stone terrace, your bare feet dangling over the precipice where the garden met the salt-spray.

In all the usual madness of your day you had forgotten it was your nameday, a date you usually let pass with nothing more than a quiet glass of spiced wine and a longer look at the horizon.

The heavy, rhythmic beat of wings had announced your mother’s arrival long before her boots hit the stone. Rhaenys Targaryen did not descend like a conqueror; she landed with the practiced grace of a woman who was born to the sky. Now, she sat beside you, the Queen Who Never Was, looking strangely small without the saddle of Meleys.

Between you sat a cedar chest, its lid thrown back to reveal a dragon’s egg. It was a stunning thing, the scales a deep, iridescent teal that shimmered like the water in the deep trenches of the Gullet.

“Are you okay? Are you eating? You look skinnier—thinner—unhealthy.” She said worried

“I’m fine, mother,” you whispered, your voice barely lifting above the sound of the tide as you reached out to trace the cold, stony ridges of the egg. It felt heavy with a potential you had long ago decided to leave behind.

“I know—your father worries. You know him,” Rhaenys said, her eyes fixed on your profile, searching for a trace of the restless fire that consumed the rest of their house.

“I know. I am fine. I am free. I feel amazing.” You turned to her then, a genuine, soft smile tugging at your lips. There was no bitterness in your isolation, only the profound relief of a woman who had stepped out of a burning room and into the cool night air.

Rhaenys reached out, her hand warm against your shoulder. “Laenor and Laena miss you. They speak of the Ghost of Pentos as if you’ve become a myth they’re afraid to lose.”

“I miss them more,” you admitted, the quiet ache of distance finally surfacing. “And the nephews that Laenor... breeded.”

The smirk that crossed your face was a flash of the twin who used to race him through the halls of High Tide. It was a shared secret, a silent acknowledgment of the truths hidden behind the Velaryon name.

“They are good boys,” Rhaenys said, her voice softening with a grandmother’s fierce pride. “Strong, kind, and clever. You would love them, and I would love for you to meet them. They deserve to know the aunt who keeps the world turning while their parents play at court.”

You looked back at the egg, its teal scales catching the dying light. It was a beautiful tether to a life of fire and blood, but as you watched your merchant ships guided by the Velaryon banners into the safety of the harbor, you knew your power didn't need to hatch to be real.

“Perhaps one day,” you said softly, closing the lid of the chest with a gentle click. “When the winds stay fair and the dragons stay in their pits. For now, tell them their aunt is watching the sea for them.”

The weight of your mother’s silver-threaded cloak was warm against your cheek as you settled into her side, the two of you silhouetted against the vast, darkening expanse of the Pentoshi coast. For a moment, you weren't the Ghost of Pentos or the merchant queen of the Narrow Sea; you were simply a daughter seeking the familiar scent of sea salt and dragon smoke that followed Rhaenys everywhere.

“How are my nieces?” you whispered, the words catching slightly in the humid air. You thought of Baela and Rhaena, fierce and bright, growing up in a world that seemed determined to cage them in one way or another.

Rhaenys tilted her head, resting it atop yours, her hand coming up to cover yours where it lay on your lap. “Great,” she murmured, her voice vibrating with a rare, relaxed warmth. “They miss you more than words can imagine. To them, you aren't a ghost at all. You are a hero—a Lady who bowed to no beast. You always send them gold and sweets, and they think you live in a palace of glass at the edge of the world.”

You let out a soft, breathy laugh, the sound disappearing into the wind. “A palace of glass. If only they saw the ink stains on my fingers and the dust on my ledgers.”

“They see a woman who chose her own horizon,” your mother corrected gently, her grip on your hand tightening. “They see a Velaryon who didn't need a dragon’s wings to fly away from the things that would have broken her. Every time a shipment of Pentoshi honey or Myrish lace arrives with your seal, Baela declares it a bounty from the Sea Goddess herself.”

You smiled, eyes closing as you imagined the girls tearing into the crates you’d spent weeks carefully curating. You sent them the best the Essosi markets had to offer—not just for the luxury of it, but because you wanted them to know there was a world beyond the grim stone of Dragonstone and the stifling politics of the Red Keep.

“They are strong, then?” you asked. “I miss them—I hate to admit I even miss Daemon.”

“Fierce as the fires they were born from,” Rhaenys said. “But they lack your stillness. They haven't learned yet that the quietest heart often holds the most territory and Daemon—“ she laughs for a moment “Daemon is Daemon.”

The two of you sat in silence for a long time, watching the silver seahorse banners ripple above the harbor. In that moment, the dragon’s egg in the chest felt less like a burden and more like a bridge—not to a life of war, but to the family that looked toward the east and saw a beacon of what it meant to be truly free.

As night fell, The silhouette of Meleys became a mere speck against the bruised purple of the dawn sky before vanishing entirely into the clouds. The roar of dragon wings, which usually vibrated in your very marrow, faded until the only sound left was the rhythmic, indifferent lap of the tide against the sea wall.

You stood on the balcony for a long time, the salt spray misting your skin. A deep, hollow ache settled in your chest—the kind that only came when the scent of home departed as quickly as it had arrived.

But as the sun climbed higher, hitting the white stone of your courtyard, you felt the familiar steadying of your heart. You looked down at your hands; they were still, unburdening themselves of the tension that always came with the Targaryen name.

It was safer this way. Here, the only fires were the ones in your hearth and the beacons that guided your ships. Here, no one looked at you and saw a piece on a board or a womb to be traded for an alliance. You were the Ghost, a woman who had successfully untethered herself from a sinking ship.

You turned away from the empty sky and walked back into your solar. The teal dragon's egg sat on the table, a beautiful, stony weight. You didn't reach for it. Instead, you picked up your quill.

The ink was black and wet, a sharp contrast to the dragon fire your mother carried. You began to draft a new ledger for the spring harvest, the scratching of the nib on parchment a grounding, rhythmic comfort. You were sad, yes—you would always miss the brother who shared your face and the sisters who shared your blood—who was now sadly gone—but as you looked out at the bustling harbor flying your father’s banners, you knew you had won a prize they never would.

You had your soul, and it belonged to no one but the sea.

──────── Driftmark ────────

The marketplace of Pentos was a labyrinth of noise—the rhythmic clack of weavers' looms, the sizzle of street food, and the melodic bartering of merchants. Yet, for all the sensory chaos, you felt the silence following you. It was a cold spot in the air, a shadow that didn't move with the sun.

You had felt it for three days. A ripple in the steady water of your life.

You stopped at a stall selling sun-dried figs, your fingers hovering over the woven baskets. You didn't look back, but you saw him in the reflection of a polished bronze platter hanging nearby. A tall, cloaked figure, his movements far too disciplined for a common traveler. He didn't browse; he tracked.

You turned into a narrower alleyway, one that led toward the sea-wall where the crowds thinned and the wind swallowed sound. You heard his boots—the heavy, rhythmic strike of high-born leather on cobblestone. When the salt spray began to mist the air, you stopped.

You shifted slowly, your movements fluid and devoid of the panicked haste he likely expected. Your hand didn't even twitch toward the slender blade at your hip; it remained at your side, relaxed. Your eyes, the deep violet of a calm sea at dusk, met his.

Under the deep shadow of his hood, a single, hauntingly familiar purple eye stared back. The other was hidden, but the tension in his jaw and the scarred line across his face told a story of a boy who had grown into a weapon.

“Do you wish to kill me?” you asked softly.

The words weren't a challenge or a plea.

"Do you wish to kill me?" you repeated, your voice a soft, melodic contrast to the harsh clatter of the nearby market.

He didn't answer immediately. His gaze dropped to your hands, noting they weren't white-knuckled or trembling. You stood with the easy posture of a woman who owned the ground beneath her feet, not a princess hiding from a war.

"You are a difficult shadow to follow, My Lady," he finally said, his voice a low, gravelly rasp that felt like velvet over stone. He didn't move to draw a weapon, but he didn't relax his guard either. "Most would be terrified to find a stranger at their heels in a place like this."

"Fear is a very loud emotion," you replied with a small, tranquil smile. "It drowns out the sound of the sea. I prefer the quiet."

You took a slow step toward him, your movements as fluid as the tide. You didn't see a Prince of the Realm; you saw a man who looked like he hadn't slept in a week, his skin pale and wind-bitten.

"You look weary," you whispered, your thumb grazing the edge of his hood. "My mother flies a long way to visit this shore. If you have been sent to watch her, you've wasted your journey. She is already gone."

Aemond felt the air leave his lungs. He had been sent by his grandfather to find a conspirator, a hidden treasury, or a secret army. Instead, he had found a woman who smelled of sea salt and expensive ink, who looked at him not with the terror he was used to, but with a devastating, quiet kindness.

"I was not sent for her," he lied, his voice dropping an octave, though he didn't move his face away from your hand. "I was sent to see what Pentos was hiding."

"And what have you found?" you asked, your eyes searching his.

"A ghost," he murmured, his gaze dropping to your lips.

"Then follow me to the manse. The wind is picking up, and I find that secrets are much easier to keep over a warm meal." The path up the cliff was narrow and steep, carved into the very face of the white stone. You climbed it with the sure-footed ease of someone who had memorized every jagged edge and smooth pebble, your sea-grey skirts fluttering like a gull's wing in the rising wind. Behind you, the heavy, rhythmic thrum of Aemond’s boots followed. He didn't speak; he simply loomed, a dark shadow against the brilliance of the setting sun.

He was glaring at the back of your head, his hand white-knuckled on the hilt of his sword. He hated this. He was a prince of the blood, the rider of Vhagar, the greatest living weapon in the Seven Kingdoms. He should be over the God's Eye, or raining fire upon the Black Queen’s strongholds. Instead, his grandfather had sent him here, across the Narrow Sea, to stalk a woman who spent her days arguing over the price of peppercorns.

To him, you were a loose thread in the tapestry of their war—a Velaryon treasury that needed to be seized or silenced. He could feel the ancient, simmering heat of Vhagar resting on the distant beach below, a monster capable of turning this entire city into a graveyard of melted glass. One word from him, and you, your ledgers, and your peaceful little life would cease to exist.

You reached the summit and pushed open the heavy oak doors of the manse. The hinges didn't creak; they were well-oiled and silent. Aemond stepped into the foyer, his single eye darting to the corners of the room, looking for the ambush he was certain was coming.

"Where are your guards?" he rasped, his voice echoing off the vaulted marble ceiling.

"I have no need for men with spears," you said softly, walking deeper into the house. You didn't look back to see if he was following; you knew he was. "The sea protects me from my enemies, and the cliffs protect me from the wind. Beyond that, I find that people rarely bother someone who is willing to listen to them."

The house was breathtakingly empty. No servants scurried through the halls; no master-at-arms paced the battlements. It was just you, the salt air, and the sprawling silence. You walked into the kitchen, a room filled with the scent of dried herbs and citrus, and began to light a small fire in the hearth.

Aemond stood in the doorway, his silhouette cutting a sharp, jagged shape against the domestic warmth. He looked entirely out of place—a hawk in a dovecote. His gaze landed on your defenseless back as you leaned over the flame. He could kill you now. It would be a mercy, really, compared to the war that was coming for the rest of your kin.

"You are a fool," he spat, though the venom in his voice felt forced, even to his own ears. "You sit here in the open, flying your father's banners, unprotected. Do you think your name is a shield? Do you think my family will let you sit out the dance while you line your father's pockets?"

"I think," you said, turning around with a wooden bowl of dark, glistening olives in your hands, "that you are very hungry. And I think that if you were going to kill me, you wouldn't be standing in my kitchen complaining about my lack of security."

You set the bowl on the heavy timber table and gestured to the chair opposite you. "Sit. Tell me why a man with a dragon's shadow on his soul has come to find a ghost."

Aemond’s jaw tightened. He wanted to scream, to draw his steel, to show you the terror he was capable of. But as he looked at your steady hands and the quiet, flickering light in your eyes, he found himself pulling out the chair and sitting down. “Why was your mother here?”

"My mother," you said again, your voice a cooling balm to his heat.

"Obviously!" he spat, the word cracking like a whip. "I am not blind. I know who she is. But what was she doing here, in a port that belongs to the Sea Snake? What business does the Queen Who Never Was have with a ghost who claims to want no part in this war?"

You didn't flinch at his tone. You simply reached for the cedar chest, your fingers grazing the teal scales of the dragon’s egg visible through the lid. "It is my nameday," you answered softly. "She came to bring me this. And to bring me the things that matter more than gold or steel."

You looked up at him, your expression peaceful. "She gives me gifts from Laenor and Laena. My sister is dead, yes, and yet my mother talks of her as if she is still alive. As if she is just over the next horizon."

Aemond stopped his pacing, his single eye fixed on the egg. The mention of the dead woman whose dragon he now commanded caused a flicker of something dark and complex to cross his face.

"She speaks of ghosts because she is surrounded by them," Aemond murmured, his voice losing its edge, falling into a low, dangerous rasp. "But why fly all this way for a daughter who refuses to fight? Why waste a dragon's breath on a nameday?"

You didn't stop your work. You sliced a loaf of crusty bread, the rhythmic thud of the knife against the wood providing a steady heartbeat to the room. "Is it? My mother carries her memory like a living thing. In this house, time doesn't move the way it does in King’s Landing. Here, people are only truly gone when we stop speaking their names."

You set the bread down and looked at him, your expression devoid of the judgment or fear he was so accustomed to. "She came because I am her daughter. Not because of a blockade, or a throne, or a council meeting. She came to give me a piece of my family because she knows I will never go back to find it myself."

Aemond leaned forward, the firelight dancing in the depths of his sapphire eye, making it glow with a cold, artificial light. He looked haunted, the weight of his mission clashing with the unsettling peace of your presence.

"She gives you a dragon's egg?" he spat, gesturing toward the chest with a gloved hand. "To a woman who hides in the shadows of Pentos? What a waste of a legacy. A dragon is not a nameday bauble to be kept on a shelf. It is fire made flesh. It is power."

"To you, perhaps," you replied softly, sliding a plate of bread and cheese toward him. You didn't raise your voice, even as he insulted your life. "To me, it is just a stone that reminds me of the sister I lost and the mother who still loves me. I have no intention of hatching it, Aemond. I have no intention of riding."

He stared at the food as if it were poisoned, then back at you. His anger was a shield, but you were refusing to strike it. "You sit here in this silence," he said, his voice dropping to a dangerous, low register, "while your father’s ships prepare for slaughter. You are a Velaryon. You are the Ghost. Do you truly think you can stay 'fine' when the world burns? Do you truly think a dragon won't find you here?"

"A dragon has already found me," you whispered, leaning your hip against the table and meeting his gaze with a steady, unblinking calm. "And yet, here I am. Still fine. Still breathing. You haven't touched your bread, Aemond."

The use of his name, spoken with such soft familiarity, hung in the air like a bridge between your peace and his war. Aemond’s hand, which had been hovering near his hilt, slowly relaxed, his fingers brushing the grain of the wooden table instead. He looked at you, truly looked at you, and for the first time, the Prince who had come to kill a ghost felt like he was the one being haunted.

He looked down at the simple meal, then back at you, his single eye narrowing as if trying to discern a trap. "You speak as if we are old friends. You know who I am, and you know what I represent. My grandfather wants your gold, and my brother wants your head to stop the flow of silver to the Blacks. And yet, you offer me bread."

"I offer you what you need," you replied, your voice remains a soothing hum. "You didn't fly across the sea because you wanted to burn a merchant's house. You came because you wanted to see if the rumors were true—if there was someone of your blood who managed to walk away from the fire and survive."

Aemond stood abruptly, the chair scraping harshly against the stone floor. He paced to the window, looking out at the dark cliffs and the distant, rhythmic light of the harbor. "You haven't walked away. You are simply hiding. But the tide is rising, and soon, there will be no shore left to stand on."

He turned back to you, his face half-hidden in shadow. "I should take that egg. I should take you. I should give the Greens the Ghost they so fear."

"You could," you agreed, crossing your arms loosely. "But then you would lose the only place in the world where no one is screaming at you to be a monster. Is that what you want?" Your hand reacting to his sleeve.

Aemond’s reaction to your touch was not a softening, but a recoil. He jerked his arm away as if your fingers were white-hot iron, his face contorting into a mask of pure, sharp-edged loathing. The vulnerability you thought you saw vanished, replaced by a cold, predatory sneer that made the kitchen feel like a tomb.

"Do not presume to speak of what I am," he hissed, his voice cutting through the quiet like a serrated blade. He stepped toward you, using his height to pin you against the heavy timber of the table. He didn't touch you, but the sheer force of his malice was a physical weight. "And do not speak of my name with that pathetic, honeyed tongue. You sit here in your silk and your salt, playing at being a martyr of peace, while you profit from the very blood you claim to abhor."

He looked down at you, his single eye scanning your face with a clinical, detached cruelty. If he found anything about your presence appealing, he buried it under a mountain of spite.

"You asked if I would kill you with her dragon," he murmured, leaning down until his lips were inches from your ear. His breath was cold. "Perhaps. Or perhaps I'll simply leave you here to watch the horizon until the day my brother's fleet arrives to strip this marble from the cliffs. You think you are free because you have no guards? You are not free. You are a pig in a pen, waiting for the butcher to decide the date of the feast."

He straightened up, his gaze flicking to the teal dragon egg with utter contempt. He reached out and slammed the lid of the cedar chest shut, the crack of wood echoing like a gunshot.

"Keep your bread," he spat, turning his back on you to stare out at the darkened sea. "And keep your silence. It won't save you when the fire reaches this shore. I am here to ensure your father’s gold stops flowing to the usurper. If you get in my way, I won't need a dragon to deal with you. I'll do it with my own hands, and I won't feel a shred of remorse for the 'Ghost' I've laid to rest."

He stood there, a jagged silhouette of leather and silver, radiating a coldness that no hearth fire could ever hope to warm.

"You think because I sat at your table that I have forgotten my purpose?" he continued to sneer, his voice dropping to a low, guttural threat. "I didn't come here for a meal. I came to see if the Ghost of Pentos was worth the effort of a dragon's flame. So far, I find you nothing but a coward hiding behind the memory of a sister you weren't there to save."

He stood up straight, looming over you, his leather brigandine creaking. He looked at the dragon's egg with pure, unadulterated contempt.

“I’m perfectly fine.” You smiled with a simple shrug

"You aren't fine," he spat. "You are irrelevant. You think you’re free? You’re just a bird in a cage who has forgotten that the door is only open because I haven't decided to kick it shut yet. I find the smell of this house—of your 'freedom'—sickening."

He turned his back on you, walking toward the hearth as if he couldn't stand to look at your calm expression for another second. "If you have letters for your father, write them tonight. Tomorrow, I may burn you.”

You didn't offer a rebuttal. You didn't plead for your life or defend your father’s honor. You simply stood by the hearth, the warmth of the fading fire at your back, and watched him. His words were designed to draw blood, to make you flinch, to provoke the screaming Targaryen temper he was so familiar with, but you remained as unyielding as the cliffs outside.

Aemond didn't look back. He stalked toward the door, his heavy cloak snapping behind him like a threat. The air in the room seemed to follow him, turning cold the moment he stepped over the threshold and into the darkened hall.

"Good night, Aemond," you whispered.

The parting was so soft it was almost a prayer, drifting through the shadows to catch him just before he disappeared. You saw the slight, momentary hitch in his shoulders—a fracture in his rigid posture—before he vanished into the gloom of the guest wing. He didn't answer. He didn't have to. The sound of a heavy door thudding shut in the distance was the only response you received.

You didn't linger in the kitchen. You extinguished the candles one by one, moving with a practiced, rhythmic calm that refused to be unsettled by a prince’s cruelty. You climbed the stairs to your own chambers, a room that smelled of lavender and the deep, dark scent of the midnight sea.

Once inside, you didn't bolt the door. You had lived your life without locks, and you would not start today, even with a kinslayer under your roof. You sat by the window, watching the distant, rhythmic blink of the lighthouse in the harbor. Down on the beach, far below, the massive, hunched shape of Vhagar was a mountain of obsidian against the starlight, her occasional, low rumble vibrating through the stone of the house.

He was mean, he was cold, and he was dangerous. He looked at your peace and saw a target. But as you laid down in the silence, you knew something he didn't. You had seen the way his hand trembled when you mentioned your sister. You had seen the exhaustion behind the sapphire.

He could threaten to burn your world to ash, but for tonight, he was just a guest in a house that didn't fear him.

The light of the morning was pale and watery, filtering through the high windows of the solar. You stood a few feet away, your toes curling against the cool marble floor, watching the man who had threatened to unmake your world just hours before. On the cushions of the low divan, Aemond looked less like a conqueror and more like a relic of a forgotten age. The harsh lines of his face had smoothed in the half-light, his silver hair spilled across the dark fabric like moonlight on oil.

You watched the subtle hitch in his throat, the way his knuckles whitened where his arms were tucked across his chest. He was a creature of instincts; he had known you were there the moment the hem of your shift brushed the floor.

"You are peaceful in your sleep, Aemond," you whispered, your voice a soft ripple in the morning quiet. "How long do you plan to be here before you kill me?"

"A moon," he answered. His voice was a dry rasp, devoid of the sleep-heavy warmth most men possessed upon waking. His eyes remained closed, the long lashes casting shadows over his cheekbones.

"Well then," you said, turning toward the small kitchenette where the morning’s fruit and bread sat waiting. "You best help around if you plan to spend your time here."

The reaction was instantaneous. His eyes snapped open—the violet one sharp and cold, the sapphire glinting with a sudden, jagged light. He sat up in one fluid, aggressive motion, the cushions shifting beneath his weight.

"I am a Prince," he snapped, the word dripping with an arrogance intended to remind you of the crown you had walked away from. "I am the blood of the dragon. I will not play servant to some Velaryon ghost who has forgotten her place."

You didn't turn around. You simply picked up a pitcher of fresh water, pouring it into a basin with a steady, rhythmic splash. "In this house, there are no Princes. There are only those who eat and those who provide. I have no servants to fetch your water or brush the sand from your boots. If you intend to stay a moon, you will find the silence very hungry indeed if you do not contribute."

Aemond stood, his frame looming large in the small room. He looked at your back, his jaw tight enough to crack. He was used to being served, feared, or fought. Being told to work was a novel insult he didn't quite know how to handle.

"You are bold for someone whose life hangs by a thread," he hissed, stepping toward you until the scent of leather and cold air preceded him.

"And you are remarkably loud for a man trying to hide from a war," you replied, finally turning to face him. You held out a basket of laundry—linens that smelled of lavender and sea salt. "The well is behind the house. I suggest you start there. Unless, of course, the great Prince Aemond is afraid of a little water?"

Aemond followed you down the cliff path, his mood as foul as a gathering storm. He had spent the last hour soaking his fine leather boots and cursing every ancestor who had ever crossed the sea, but the weight of the water bucket in his hand felt heavier than it should have. His palm still burned where your skin had touched his at the well—a soft, steady pressure that had made his breath hitch in a way no dragon-ride ever could.

He grumbled under his breath, a low string of High Valyrian insults aimed at your head, but he didn't turn back. He watched the way you moved ahead of him, your hair caught in the sea breeze, revealing the graceful line of your neck before veiling your face again.

"I wouldn’t need to learn this nonsense!" he snapped at your back, his voice echoing off the white stone. "At any given moment, I could be at the head of a council! I am a prince!"

"I know," you whispered, stopping at the edge of the bustling harbor. You turned to face him, the turquoise banners of the Sea Snake snapping above you. You didn't look at him with the awe a prince expected; you looked at him with a knowing, quiet clarity. "Come, let’s go to the ports. I know that’s why you’re really here. You want to see if I’m smuggling goods, men, gold, or grain to the blacks. To see if I’m rallying Pentos for their cause."

Aemond’s expression shifted, his single eye narrowing until it was a sliver of violet ice. He dropped the pretense of the disgruntled guest, his posture straightening into that of a soldier. He stepped closer, crowding your space, the smell of the salt-tide mixing with the cold iron of his presence.

"You speak of treason very casually," he said, his voice dropping to a dangerous, low vibration. "Do you think that because we share blood, I will look the other way? If I find so much as a single crate of Myrish crossbows destined for Dragonstone, I will burn these docks with you tied to the mast."

"Then look," you invited, gesturing toward the rows of massive carracks and merchant ships. "Walk the line with me, Aemond. Check every manifest. Count every bag of grain. If you are to be my shadow for a moon, you might as well see how a ghost manages her empire."

You began to walk, weaving through the shouting sailors and heavy-laden wagons. Aemond stalked behind you, his hand never far from his sword, his gaze scanning every face and every seal. He was looking for a war, but all he found was the clockwork efficiency of a woman who commanded the sea without ever needing to shout.

"That ship," he pointed out sharply, gesturing to a sleek vessel flying no colors. "Where is it from? What is in the hold?"

"Saffron and silk from Yi Ti," you answered without needing to check your ledger. "It goes to the Free Cities. Not a single blade on board, unless you count the kitchen knives."

He let out a sharp, frustrated breath, hating that you had an answer for everything. He wanted to find a reason to hate you—a reason to be the butcher his grandfather expected—but as he watched you navigate the chaos of the docks with nothing but a soft word and a calm gaze, he found himself increasingly unsettled by the silence you carried.

──────── Driftmark ────────

The first week was a war of attrition, fought not with steel, but with the steady, quiet rhythm of your life. Aemond arrived as a storm, intending to shatter your peace, but he found himself caught in the doldrums of your kindness.

By the third day, his sharp, biting remarks about your "useless" existence began to lose their edge, mostly because they were met with a calm nod and a bowl of warm stew. He spent his afternoons stalking the docks, his hand white-knuckled on his sword hilt, looking for a reason to burn your ships. Instead, he found only the way the sailors bowed their heads to you in genuine reverence—not out of fear of a dragon, but out of respect for the woman who ensured their families were fed.

By the fifth day, the silence of the cliffside manse had stopped feeling like a void and started feeling like a sanctuary. He found himself watching you from the shadows of the hallway, mesmerized by the way you hummed to yourself while organizing ledgers. He hated the way you looked in the moonlight, soft and untethered by the heavy chains of duty that strangled him. He hated that he knew exactly how much sugar you liked in your tea. Most of all, he hated the way his heart skipped a beat when you walked into a room, though he told himself it was merely his warrior's instinct reacting to a threat.

He remained cold. He remained mean. He snapped at you for the way you folded his clothes and sneered at the "pauper’s work" you forced him to do. But every night, when he lay on the cushions in your solar, he found himself listening for the sound of your breathing in the next room, anchored by the very ghost he had been sent to exorcise.

On the seventh day, the air was particularly sweet, smelling of jasmine and salt. You found him sharpening his blade on the terrace, his movements jagged and restless.

“Come! I have a surprise for you, sweet Aemond,” you smiled gently, your voice cutting through his dark thoughts.

Aemond froze at the sound of the epithet. "Sweet Aemond." The words felt like a mockery, a jagged piece of glass wrapped in velvet. In the Red Keep, he was "the kinslayer," "the usurper’s brother," or "the rider of Vhagar." No one had ever dared call him sweet, not since he was a boy clutching a hollow hope for a dragon of his own.

He stood by the window of your solar, his tall, lean frame casting a long shadow over your ledgers. Over the last week, his internal map of you had become dangerously detailed. He knew that you woke before the gulls did; he knew that you took your tea with a sprig of mint; he knew that despite his biting insults, you never once raised your voice to defend yourself. It infuriated him. Every time he snapped at you, expecting a fight, you simply offered him a plate of honeyed cakes or a quiet smile.

"Do not call me that," he ground out, his voice a low, warning rumble. He turned to face you, his hand instinctively gripping the hilt of his sword. "I am not one of your nieces to be pampered with sweets and soft words. I am a Prince of the Realm, and I am here on a mission of blood."

But you were already moving toward the door, your skirts swishing against the floor with a rhythmic, soothing sound. You didn't even look back to see if he was following, a move that grated on his pride because it showed just how little you feared his temper.

"The blood can wait until tomorrow, Aemond," you said over your shoulder, your voice a gentle hum. "The sun is at the right height, and the tide is perfect. Come."

With a sharp, frustrated exhale, he followed. He told himself he was only going to ensure you weren't meeting a spy in the cliffs. He told himself he was merely monitoring a high-value target. He certainly didn't tell himself that he had begun to look forward to the way the sea air caught in your hair.

You led him down a path he hadn't seen yet—not toward the docks, but toward a hidden cove shielded by a natural arch of white stone. The water here was a brilliant, translucent turquoise, still and clear as a mirror.

"What is this?" he demanded, his eye darting to the caves. "Some hidden treasury? A smuggling point?"

"Look," you whispered, pointing toward the center of the cove.

The "surprise" wasn't gold or steel. It was a pod of sea-dolphins, their silver backs breaking the surface of the water in a coordinated, peaceful dance. In the center of the cove, a small, weathered boat was moored, filled with buckets of small silver fish.

"You brought me here... to look at fish?" Aemond hissed, his face contorting with a mix of confusion and mounting rage. "I have a war to win! I have a dragon that could swallow this entire cove! I did not cross the Narrow Sea to play at being a naturalist!"

"I brought you here to see something that doesn't want anything from you," you said softly, stepping closer to him. You didn't touch him this time, but the space between you was charged with the heat of his frustration. "No councils, no grandfather, no oaths. Just the world as it is. Sit, Aemond. Feed them. I promise, the war will still be there when we get back."

He looked at the bucket, then at your face. He looked like he wanted to strike the basket from your hands, but for a fleeting second, the sapphire in his eye didn't look like a cold gem—it looked like a fragment of the very sea you were showing him.

The thought crossed your mind before you could even process. The splash was deafening in the quiet cove, a violent intrusion into the stillness of the water. Aemond went under with a muffled shout of surprise, his silver hair billowing like smoke beneath the surface. When he broke the water, he was a vision of pure, freezing fury. He lunged forward, his movements hampered by the sodden weight of his leathers, and caught you by the waist. His grip was bruising, his fingers digging into your skin with an angry, condescending force that intended to punish you for your insolence.

"You insolent, mindless girl," he hissed, the water dripping from his chin as he hauled you flush against his chest. "I could have you drowned for less. I should take your head for even thinking to touch me."

You didn't pull away. Instead, you let your body go limp in his hold, your hands rising slowly to cradle the nape of his neck. Your skin was cool against his feverish heat. "You’ll be alright, sweet prince—"

"Don’t call me that," he ground out, his breath hitching as you pulled him a fraction closer. The water swirled around your waists, the turquoise depth making the world feel small, private, and dangerous.

"What should you have me call you?" you voiced softly, your eyes searching the turbulent violet of his. "Warrior? Kinslayer? It wouldn’t matter anyways. You’re here to end me at the moon’s end. Why worry over a name spoken by a ghost?"

Aemond didn't answer. The venomous retort died in his throat as his gaze dropped. The seawater had turned your silk shift into a second skin, the thin fabric clinging to every curve. His eye flickered to your lips, then down to your chest, where the cold water had made your nipples peak against the wet green cloth. He felt the sudden, violent thrum of his own pulse in his ears, louder than the crashing surf beyond the archway.

He had come to Pentos to destroy a legacy, but as he looked at you, he realized he was the one being unmade.

He didn't realize how close you both were until the tips of your noses brushed. He was still trying to find a way to be cruel, to find the words to push you back into the sea, but you didn't give him the chance. You leaned in, closing the final inch, and pressed your lips to his.

The kiss was slow and aching, tasting of salt and a deep, buried hunger. It wasn't the kiss of a prince and a victim; it was the collision of two people who had spent their lives in different kinds of exile. Aemond’s hands, which had been poised to shove you away, suddenly slid upward, his fingers tangling into your wet hair with a desperate, possessive growl. He kissed you back with a ferocity that spoke of every insult he’d hurled at you, every cold look he’d given you, and every night he’d spent listening to you breathe.

Aemond’s voice was a ragged, broken thing, caught between the Prince who demanded order and the man who was currently losing his footing in the tide. He tried to pull his head back, to regain some semblance of the cold, untouchable wall he had built around himself, but your tongue darted into his mouth, silencing his protests with a slick, bold heat.

"You think—" he started again, his breath hitching as you pulled away just an inch, only to dive back in. "That kissing me—seducing—"

He was trembling now, the water around you shivering with the tension in his muscles. He wanted to call it a trap. He wanted to sneer at your "merchant’s tricks," but as your lips moved to the sensitive skin of his neck, kissing him with a terrifying, gentle precision, his head fell back against the stone of the archway.

"—me—will stop your—" he tried to finish, his voice dropping to a desperate, broken whisper.

He felt the soft, rhythmic press of your body against his, the wet silk of your shift offering no barrier to the heat of your skin. His hands, which had started as a means to restrain you, tightened around your waist with a bruising, frantic possessiveness. He wasn't holding you back anymore; he was holding onto you as if you were the only thing keeping him from sinking into the dark.

"—end? Stop me from—"

The threat died in the air, unfinished and hollow. He couldn't say the words kill you. Not while your breath was hot against his pulse, not while your hands were tangled in his hair, treating him as if he were something precious rather than a weapon of war.

He let out a low, guttural sound—half-sob, half-growl—and buried his face in the crook of your shoulder. He was a rider of the oldest dragon in the world, a master of the skies, yet here in the shallows, he was completely undone by a woman who didn't even own a sword.

"You are a demon," he rasped against your skin, his teeth grazing your collarbone in a way that wasn't quite a bite but promised something much deeper. "A sea-witch sent to ruin me. You think this changes what I am? What I have to do?"

Even as he said it, he was pulling you closer, his hips searching for yours beneath the water, his resolve dissolving into the turquoise depths of the cove.

He ripped away from you, The water cascaded off him in silver sheets as he tore himself away, the sudden absence of his heat leaving you chilled in the surf. Aemond didn't look back; he marched toward the sand with the rigid, jerky gait of a man fleeing a battlefield he had nearly lost. His chest was heaving, his wet leathers creaking with every aggressive stride.

"I don't think anything, I just want to kiss you," you whispered to his retreating back, your voice carrying easily over the gentle lap of the waves.

He stumbled slightly, his boots sinking into the wet grit of the shore, but he didn't turn. "You are a seductress," he threw over his shoulder, the words jagged and defensive. "It won’t change—it won’t change anything."

He reached the dry sand and spun around, his silver hair plastered to his face, his single eye wide and wild like a cornered animal’s. He looked at you standing there, the green silk clinging to your frame, looking every bit the ghost that haunted his every waking thought. The sight seemed to snap something in him, replacing his fleeting vulnerability with a harsh, commanding bark.

"Come on!" he shouted, his voice echoing off the stone archway. "Let’s get you dried off! Now!"

It was the tone he used for squires and soldiers, a desperate attempt to reclaim the hierarchy that had dissolved in the water. He stood at the edge of the path, his hands clenched into fists at his sides, refusing to come back into the water to help you. He couldn't risk it. He knew now that if he touched you again while the salt was still on your skin, the "moon’s end" would become a promise he’d never be able to keep.

You waded out slowly, the water dragging at your hem, watching him with a serene, unbothered expression that only seemed to infuriate him further. As you reached the sand, he draped his heavy, sodden cloak over your shoulders—not out of chivalry, but to hide you from his own sight.

"Move," he muttered, his jaw set in a hard line as he shoved past you toward the cliff path. "Before you catch a chill and I have to listen to you cough for the rest of the fortnight."

The walk back to the manse was silent, save for the squelch of his boots. He stayed five paces ahead of you, his back a wall of iron, but every few seconds his head would twitch, his eye darting back just enough to ensure you were still there, still breathing, still following him into the dark.

The heavy oak doors of the manse slammed shut behind you, the sound echoing through the empty, marble hall like a gavel. The air inside was cool, but the tension between you was suffocating. You reached out, your fingers grazing the sodden leather of his sleeve, but Aemond lurched away as if your skin carried a plague.

"Do not touch me! Do not!" He snapped, his voice cracking with a frantic, jagged energy. He backed into the center of the foyer, water pooling at his feet, his silver hair dripping onto the floor.

You didn't flinch. You stood your ground, the wet silk of your dress heavy against your legs, a small, knowing smile playing on your lips. "Why?" you whispered, the word drifting through the shadows of the hall.

"I am not here to play stable boy!" he roared, his hands trembling at his sides. "To cook and clean and to play in the water! I am a Prince of the House of Dragons! I am the rider of Vhagar! I am here to kill you, to take your head, and to end this pathetic, ghostly game you play!"

In one fluid, lightning-fast motion, you reached to the small of your back. The metallic shink of a blade echoed through the room. You didn't point it at him; you held it out, hilt-first, the obsidian blade catching the dim light of the hallway.

Aemond recoiled, his hand flying to his own sword, his single eye wide with a shock he couldn't mask. He hadn't expected the Ghost to move with such lethal grace. He hadn't expected you to be the one to draw steel.

"Kill me," you said, your voice dropping to a low, steady hum that cut through his panic. You stepped toward him, forcing the hilt of the dagger into his chest until he was forced to take it or let it fall. "Why wait? Why torture yourself for another three weeks? Kill me now, Aemond. Leave my body here for my mother to find when she flies back, or for my father’s sailors to discover when they come for the grain."

You leaned in closer, your heart beating against the hand he held against his chest. Your eyes held his with a devastating, quiet clarity. "Don’t waste your time, sweet Aemond. If you are the monster they say you are, prove it. Put an end to the silence." You whispered as you pushed the dagger to his chest.

Aemond stared down at the dagger, then at your throat, his breathing coming in shallow, ragged hitches. The sapphire in his eye glinted with a desperate, agonizing conflict. He could do it. He could end the distraction, the sweetness, and the strange, terrifying peace you offered. But as the heat of your body radiated through the wet fabric, the Prince who had burned the Riverlands found that he couldn't even lift his arm.

"You think you are so brave," he rasped, his voice trembling as he dropped the dagger. It clattered onto the marble with a lonely, ringing sound. "You think this is a game. It is not a game."

He turned away from you, his shoulders hunched, looking utterly defeated by a woman who hadn't even raised her voice.

But then the sudden movement was a blur of leather and cold rage. His hand clamped around your throat, not to choke the life from you, but to anchor you, his thumb pressing firmly into the divot beneath your jaw. He yanked you forward so violently your toes nearly left the marble floor, and then his mouth was on yours—crashing, desperate, and devoid of any gentleness.

It wasn't a kiss of affection; it was a collision. It was the sound of his iron-clad resolve finally snapping in two.

You gasped softly against his lips, the sound swallowed by the heat of his mouth. Aemond groaned, a low, tortured vibration that rumbled from his chest into yours. He pushed you backward until your spine hit the heavy oak of the manse doors, the impact sending a jolt through your frame. He didn't let go. His fingers remained locked around your neck, his other hand coming up to tangle ruthlessly in your wet hair, tilting your head back to deepen the assault.

"Be quiet," he rasped against your lips, his voice a broken snarl. "For once in your life, be silent."

He was kissing you as if he could pull the peace right out of your lungs and claim it for himself. He tasted of salt, iron, and a frantic, starving hunger that a thousand years of war couldn't satisfy. Every time he pulled back for air, his forehead dropped against yours, his single eye wide and shadowed with a terrifying intensity.

"You think I don't see it?" he breathed, his grip on your throat softening, his thumb now tracing the line of your pulse, which was hammering as fast as a bird’s wing. "I see the peace. I see the world you've built away from the rot of our family. I see it, and I want to burn it to the ground just so I don't have to look at what I'll never have."

He moved his mouth to your ear, his teeth grazing the lobe. "You aren't a ghost. You're a curse. And if I don't kill you at the moon's end, I will be the one who is dead."

He pulled back just enough to look at you, his face inches from yours. The sapphire in his eye glinted with a desperate, dark light, and for the first time, the Prince wasn't sneering. He was looking at you as if you were the only shore in a world made of drowning.

You grabbed his hand intertwining in yours, you guiding through the kitchen, your feet slowly moving against the floor. The hallway was a tunnel of shifting shadows as you led him toward the stairs, your damp skirts leaving a trail of dark droplets on the marble. You could hear the heavy, uneven rhythm of his breathing and the faint, metallic clink of his scabbard against his thigh. He was like a leashed predator, snarling at the tether but unable to break it.

When you reached the heavy oak door of your bedchamber, the air changed. The room smelled of dried lavender and the clean, sharp scent of the midnight sea.

Aemond stopped at the threshold, his single eye darting around the room as if he expected a trap, but he found the unmade bed, the soft rugs, the single candle flickering on the nightstand which was more terrifying to him than a battlefield.

"I’m going to be cold tonight," you said simply, finally letting go of his hand. Your fingers left a ghost of warmth on his skin that made him flex his jaw.

"Why would I care?" he snapped, his voice a jagged rasp. He remained by the door, his silhouette tall and imposing, his wet silver hair clinging to the dark leather of his doublet. "I told you, I am not your protector. I am not your husband. I am the man who is meant to ensure you never see another winter."

You didn't answer. You moved to the washstand, your back to him, and began to unlace the sodden green silk of your shift. The wet fabric clung stubbornly to your skin, requiring slow, deliberate movements. The sound of the silk sliding against your shoulders was loud in the silence of the room.

Aemond’s breath hitched. He shouldn't have stayed. Every instinct he possessed told him to turn, to walk out, to fly Vhagar into the clouds until the memory of your scent was scrubbed from his mind. Instead, he took a step forward, then another, until he was standing directly behind you.

He didn't touch you, but the heat radiating from him was a physical force.

"You are doing this on purpose," he hissed, his voice dropping to a low, dangerous vibration near your ear. "You think that if you let me into your bed, the blade will stay in its sheath. You think a Prince of the blood can be bought with a night of comfort."

"I think," you whispered, finally letting the wet silk pool at your waist as you turned to face him, "that you have spent your whole life being a weapon. I am simply offering you the chance to be a man."

Aemond looked down at you, his gaze raking over your shivering frame. The coldness in his eye didn't vanish, but it was joined by a dark, simmering hunger that threatened to consume everything in the room. He reached out, his gloved hand trembling slightly as he hooked a finger under the strap of your shift, pulling you an inch closer.

"If I stay," he warned, his voice a broken growl, "there will be no peace in this bed. Only the storm."

"Then keep me warm, Prince of Blood," you teased, your voice a silken thread that wound around his throat tighter than any noose.

"I am more likely to burn you than warm you," he muttered, but his hand, still encased in its wet leather glove, moved of its own accord. He traced the line of your hip, his touch hesitant at first, then increasingly possessive. He hated how easily you could command him without a single shout. You grabbed his arm.

Aemond let out a sound that was half-snarl, half-surrender as you pulled him down. He landed heavily beside you, the sodden leather of his doublet a stark, cold contrast to the yielding warmth of your mattress. He tried to prop himself up on one elbow, to maintain some shred of the distant, haughty prince, but the proximity was a poison he had already swallowed.

"You are a plague," he rasped, though he didn't pull away when you tucked yourself against his side.

He couldn't help it; his gaze was drawn downward, tracking the rhythmic rise and fall of your chest. The candlelight caught the sheen of moisture still on your skin, highlighting the soft curve of your breasts and the way your damp thighs brushed against his dark trousers. The friction was a slow torture. Every part of him was screaming to maintain his coldness, but the sheer, tactile reality of you—soft, smelling of salt and lavender, and entirely too close—was eroding his iron will.

He looked at you, his sapphire eye burning with a dark, frustrated hunger. "You speak as if this is a game of courtly love. Do you have any idea what I am thinking right now? What I want to do to this peace you treasure so much?"

He rolled over, looming above you, his wet hair dripping onto the pillows. He trapped you between his arms, his face inches from yours. The "Prince of Blood" was gone, replaced by a man who looked like he was starving.

"If I lay with you," he whispered, his gaze dropping to your lips, "I will not be gentle. I do not know how to be. I am a creature of teeth and fire. Is that truly what you want in your bed, ghost?"

“Take these off," you whispered, your voice a silken command that cut through the frantic thrumming of his heart. You reached up, your palms cupping his face, pulling him down until his forehead rested against yours.

Aemond felt his resolve shatter. The sheer, unadulterated softness of your touch was a sensation he had never known—a devastating contrast to the cold steel and bitter duty that had defined his life. A sharp, physical ache of yearning surged through him, so intense it nearly brought him to his knees. He moved with a desperate, jerky haste, yanking off his sodden clothes and casting them aside until the Prince was stripped bare, leaving only the man trembling in the candlelight.

He lunged back onto the bed, hovering over you with his pulse leaping in his throat. "This is not a surrender!" he hissed, his voice a jagged rasp of denial even as he pressed his heat against your cool skin. "Nor am I sheathing my blade! I still have a mission, Ghost. I still have a duty to the crown!"

But his actions betrayed every word. His hands, though shaking, found the curves of your body with a starving possessiveness. He looked down at you, his sapphire eye burning with a dark, tormented light, terrified of the way you were making him feel—as if for the first time in his life, he wasn't a weapon being aimed, but a man being found.

"Do not think this changes what I am," he breathed against your lips, his fingers tangling in your hair as he prepared to lose himself in the very peace he had sworn to destroy.

He hovered over you, his skin hot and radiating a feverish energy that made the air between you hum. He looked down at you, his single eye wide and searching, filled with a terrifying, raw yearning he had spent his entire life suppressing. He had been taught to take what he wanted through fear and fire, but your softness was a different kind of battlefield—one where his usual weapons were useless.

"I will still do what must be done," he rasped, his hands coming up to frame your face, his thumbs pressing into your cheeks with a bruising intensity. "I will not let you ruin me. I will not let you turn me into a coward."

But even as he spoke the threats, he was lowering himself, his chest finally meeting yours in a shock of skin-to-skin contact that drew a sharp, guttural groan from deep in his throat. He buried his face in the crook of your neck, inhaling the scent of you as if it were the only air left in the world.

He didn't know how to do this—how to want someone without wanting to destroy them—and the confusion made him bite at your shoulder, a sharp, possessive nip that left a mark.

"You have hexed me," he whispered against your skin, his hands sliding down to grip your thighs, pulling you flush against him until there was no space left for the war to sit between you. "You are a ghost, and you are pulling me into the grave with you. Tell me you know what you’ve done."

He looked up then, his sapphire eye burning with an agonizing heat. He was waiting for you to mock him, to tell him he had already lost—but he was also waiting for you to pull him back down into the kiss that had started his undoing.

You guided him with a devastating patience, your hands sliding down his spine, urging him to settle into the heat. As a soft, broken moan escaped your lips, his rhythm shattered. He abandoned the slow pace, his hips driving into you with a sudden, frantic speed that stole the air from your lungs.

"Aemond—" you gasped, your fingers digging into the muscles of his shoulders.

"Don’t call for me!" he snarled, though the command lacked its usual bite. He buried his face in the crook of your neck, his breath coming in ragged, scorching bursts. "Don’t moan for me—like some—"

The insult died in his throat. He couldn't finish it. He couldn't call you a harlot or a spy when your heartbeat was drumming against his own, a steady rhythm of life that mocked his obsession with death. He was drowning in you, and the more he fought the current, the deeper he sank.

He slowed, not because he wanted to, but because he was overwhelmed. He pressed his forehead against yours, his silver hair a curtain that shut out the rest of the world. His single eye was open, staring into yours with a look of pure, unadulterated agony.

"I hate you," he whispered, his voice cracking as he thrusted again, slower this time, deeper, feeling every inch of the friction. "I hate how you look at me. I hate that you aren't afraid."

He gripped your wrists, pinning them to the pillows above your head in a display of dominance that felt more like he was clinging to a mast in a hurricane.

"You are nothing but a means to an end," he ground out, his voice a jagged rasp as he forced himself into you with a punishing, shallow rhythm.

But you didn't flinch. You arched your back, the movement dragging his hips deeper, forcing a guttural, choked sound from his throat. You moaned, a long, shivering sound that vibrated through his chest, and his eyes blew wide.

"Aemond—" you gasped, your legs hooking around his waist to pull him flush against your core. He breathing was now a ragged groan as the friction of your wet heat became too much to bear. His pace became frantic, a desperate, uncoordinated pounding that abandoned all pretense of a "mission."

He let go of your wrists, his hands diving beneath your back to haul you upward, dragging your breasts against the scars on his chest. He bit your shoulder, his teeth sinking in just enough to draw a sharp cry from you, which he drank in like wine. He was shaking now, his movements heavy and wet, the sound of skin slapping against skin echoing in the quiet room.

"I will burn you," he hissed against your skin, his thrusts reaching a fever pitch, deep and jarring. "I will take everything you are."

"Then take it," you whispered, your voice broken and breathless.

"Look at you," he sneered, though his voice was thick, losing its sharp edge to the heat of the room. "The Ghost of Pentos, reduced to a panting, moaning mess for a kinslayer."

He thrusted again—a hard, jarring slide that made your head toss back against the pillows. You let out a high, broken cry, your fingers scratching uselessly at the bedsheets. The sound seemed to goad him. He didn't slow down; he accelerated, his hips working with a cold, mechanical precision that sought to overwhelm you.

"Is this what you wanted?" he hissed, leaning down until his damp hair brushed your cheeks. He watched your eyes flutter, watched your lips part as you gasped his name again. "Does the war feel far away now? Does the blood on my hands matter while I’m inside you?"

You couldn't answer. You were a symphony of soft, desperate sounds, your body arching instinctively to meet every punishing drive. Your skin was slick with a mix of sea salt and sweat, glowing in the dying candlelight. Each time he pulled back, nearly slipping out, you made a small, wounded sound of protest that made his jaw lock in a frantic effort to stay detached.

"Aemond—please—" you whimpered, your legs tightening around his waist, dragging him back into the depths of your heat.

"Silence!" he commanded, though he was the one trembling. His hands traveling down to grip your hips, his fingers digging into the soft flesh of your thighs until he surely left bruises. He began to drive into you with a deeper, more rhythmic violence, his breathing coming in ragged, ugly hitches.

You are nothing," he lied, his voice breaking as he buried himself to the hilt, holding there for a long, pulse-pounding second. "You are just a body. A place to wait out the moon."

But he didn't pull back. He began to move again, faster now, his face contorting with a pained, desperate need that was anything but cold.

Aemond tried to pull his head back, to maintain that sliver of distance that allowed him to pretend he wasn't being consumed, but you wouldn't let him. You reached up, your fingers digging into his hair and cupping his jaw, forcing his face down until he had no choice but to look at you.

"Don’t stop—please," you whimpered, the sound vibrating against his lips as you pulled him into a kiss that tasted of salt and desperation.

The "Prince" finally shattered. The cold, calculating rider of Vhagar vanished, replaced by a man who was drowning in a sea of his own suppressed desire. Aemond let out a guttural, primal sound—a choking moan of surrender that was muffled by your mouth. His hands flew from your hips to your hair, his fingers tangling ruthlessly in the strands as he abandoned all pretense of a measured rhythm.

He lost control.

The movements became frantic, a blurring, heavy friction that made the bed frame groan against the stone wall. his thrusts becoming deep, jarring, and unrelenting. His single eye was wide, blown out and glazed with a terrifying intensity as he watched your face shatter into the heights of pleasure.

"You... you curse..." he gasped, the words barely intelligible over the sound of his ragged breathing and the wet slap of skin.

The tension in his body reached a breaking point. His muscles turned to iron, his back arching as he let out a choked, pained cry. He drove into you one last time, burying himself to the absolute hilt as he came, his whole frame convulsing in a violent, prolonged release that left him sobbing for air against your neck.

He collapsed onto you, his weight heavy and honest, his heart hammering like a trapped bird against your chest. The coldness was gone, burned away by a fire that Vhagar herself couldn't have sparked.

The silence that followed was heavier than the storm of a few moments ago. You sank back into the pillows, your body feeling like liquid gold, every muscle humming with a weary, satisfied ache. Your eyes were heavy, the lids fluttering shut as you drifted in the afterglow, feeling the lingering heat of his skin against yours. In that hazy, half-light of the chamber, you felt safe—more at peace than you had been since he arrived.

But the shift beside you was sudden and sharp.

Aemond pulled away as if the bed had turned into a nest of vipers. He rolled to the edge, his bare back to you, his spine a rigid line of scarred ivory in the moonlight. The frantic, desperate lover was gone, replaced instantly by a man drowning in the icy waters of his own regret.

He sat on the edge of the bed, his head hanging low, silver hair veiling his face. His breath was still coming in shallow, jagged hitches, but now they were born of panic rather than passion.

He stared at his hands—the hands that had held you with such starving possessiveness—and felt a wave of nausea.

What have I done?

He was a Prince of House Targaryen. He was the protector of the realm, the rider of the greatest beast alive, the iron-willed brother of a King.

He had been sent here to bring a ghost to heel, to secure gold and eliminate a threat. Instead, he had been unmade in a pool of silk and sweat. He had surrendered his dignity to the very woman he was meant to judge.

The shame was a physical weight, more suffocating than any armor. He thought of his mother’s face, of his grandfather’s cold expectations, and of the blood he had spilled to prove his strength.

All of it felt tainted now, softened by the touch of your hands.

"Go to sleep," he ground out, his voice a low, bitter rasp that didn't hide the tremor in his tone. He didn't look back at you. He couldn't. If he looked at you, he might see the pity in your eyes, or worse—the same sweetness that had ruined him.

He reached for his discarded breeches, his movements jerky and filled with a quiet, simmering self-loathing. He wouldn't stay in this bed. He would find a corner of the room, or the hard stone of the floor, anything to distance himself from the warmth that threatened to turn his heart into a traitor.

Aemond stood abruptly, the sudden movement causing the bed to groan. He didn't even have his boots on yet, but he stood tall, his pale skin gleaming with a light sheen of sweat that he now seemed to loathe. He snatched his breeches from the floor with a violent tug, his jaw set so tight it looked as if it might shatter.

"Wait—Aemond—" you started, sitting up slightly, the sheets falling away from your shoulders.

"Don’t!" he barked, spinning around to face you. His single eye was wild, the sapphire glinting like a shard of ice in the dark. He looked at you—truly looked at your tangled hair and the flushed skin he had just been worshipping—and his face twisted into a mask of pure, defensive cruelty.

"I told you!" he hissed, his voice trembling with the effort to remain cold. "You were just a body! A convenience of the flesh! Do not mistake a moment of... animal necessity for something more."

He shoved his legs into his trousers, nearly stumbling in his haste to put a barrier between his skin and yours. He was breathing as if he had just run a league, his chest heaving. "I am a Prince with needs! You happened to be here, in this house, in this bed. Any woman would have served the same purpose."

It was a lie so transparent it hung in the air like smoke, but he clung to it like a shield. He couldn't admit—not to you, and certainly not to himself—that he had felt more in the last hour than he had in his life time. To admit that would be to admit defeat.

"You are still a target at the moon's end," he spat, his fingers fumbling with the laces of his clothes. "The sun will rise, and I will be the Prince I was born to be, and you will still be the ghost I was sent to haunt. Nothing has changed!"

He turned his back on you again, unable to maintain the glare.

──────── Driftmark ────────

The sun had not yet crested the horizon, leaving the manse in a bruised, violet twilight. You rose with a quiet, practiced grace, the cool morning air a sharp contrast to the lingering heat under the sheets. You didn't look toward the corner of the room where Aemond had spent the night—hunched in a chair or paced into a corner, guarding his pride like a wounded animal.

You dressed in a simple, heavy linen gown, the fabric scratchy and honest. Your heart felt heavy, but your resolve was like iron. You had offered him a sanctuary, a piece of your peace, and even the intimacy of your body, and he had met it with the only language he knew: vitriol and denial.

Fine. If he wanted to be the Prince of Blood, you would let him be alone in his royalty.

You moved through the manse with a ghost’s silence. You didn't start the tea for him. You didn't set a plate of honeyed bread on the table. When you passed him in the hallway—he was already up, leaning against a stone pillar with his arms crossed and his eye fixed on the floor—you didn't even turn your head.

Aemond’s head snapped up as you walked by. He looked wretched; the dark circles under his eye told of a night spent in a war with his own mind. He opened his mouth, perhaps to deliver another biting remark about your "needs" or his "mission," but the words died when you walked right past him as if he were nothing more than a shadow on the wall.

He followed you into the kitchen, his boots heavy and loud against the marble, a stark contrast to your bare feet. "Where are you going?" he snapped, his voice scratchy and tired.

You ignored him. You picked up a basket and a small paring knife, heading toward the garden.

"I am speaking to you!" he growled, stepping into your path. He looked down at you, his jaw tight, waiting for the sweetness, the "sweet Aemond," the soft smile that usually diffused his anger.

You looked through him. Not at him, but through him, as if he were made of glass. You stepped around him without a word, the hem of your skirts brushing his boots. You wouldn't give him the satisfaction of your voice. You had given him everything the night before, and he had called it a "necessity."

Aemond froze, his hand half-extended as if to grab your arm, but he pulled it back, his fingers curling into a fist. The silence you offered him now wasn't the peaceful kind he’d grown used to—it was cold, vast, and deafening.

"Speak to me—" he started, trying to wrap his voice in the iron authority of a prince, but the end of the sentence cracked, his voice dropping into a register of raw, unvarnished desperation.

You didn't stop your work. You knelt among the lavender, the scent rising around you as you clipped a few stalks for the morning’s wash. Your movements were fluid and indifferent.

"Why?" you asked, your voice as level as the horizon. "If you are to kill me—then there is no need to share conversation or—warmth, as you so kindly put it."

Aemond stopped a few feet away, his hands twitching at his sides.

"I am a Prince of the Realm," he ground out, though the title sounded hollow even to his own ears. "I do not take orders from the woman I am meant to execute."

"Then don't," you replied, finally standing and turning to face him. You still had the soft look, that beautiful face that made him weak. You began to walk past him, the basket tucked against your hip.

"Don’t walk away from me!" he shouted, the command snapping through the air, though it was hollowed out by that desperate plea that had preceded it. “Please!”

The word hung in the air, naked and jarring. Please. It was a word that didn't belong in Aemond’s vocabulary, a word he had likely crushed out of his soul the day he lost his eye and gained a dragon.

You stopped, but you didn't turn around. The morning sun was just beginning to hit the garden, casting his long, jagged shadow over the lavender at your feet. You could hear his breathing—heavy, ragged, and entirely too fast for a man who claimed to be in control.

"I cannot be 'sweet' Aemond," he whispered, the admission sounding like a confession of a crime. "If I am soft, I am dead. If I love, I am weak. You... you made me forget that for a night. And when the sun came up, I realized I had left my armor in the dirt."

He moved to stand in front of you, forcing you to look at him. His sapphire eye was clouded, the cold brilliance replaced by a dark, swirling confusion. "I did not mean to call you... just a body. I said it because I was afraid of how much I wanted to stay in that bed. I was afraid that if I didn't push you away, I would never find the strength to leave."

He looked down at your quiet, steady face, his jaw working. "Speak to me. Mock me if you must. Tell me I am a coward or a fool, but do not look through me as if I have already burned this house down. I still—I still want to be here.”

Your head cocked to the side, “is this your way of saying sorry?”

Aemond’s face went through a violent series of contortions. His brow furrowed, his jaw tightened, and for a moment, he looked as though he might snap at you again just to reclaim his dignity. The word "sorry" was a foreign tongue, a peasant’s plea, something beneath the blood of the dragon.

He looked away, staring intensely at a cluster of rosemary as if he could set it on fire with his mind.

"I am a Prince," he repeated, though the iron had left his voice, leaving it thin and brittle. "We do not... we do not offer apologies like common merchants over a bad trade."

"I do not know how to do this," he he continued , his hand reaching out and—this time—actually grazing your cheek with the backs of his knuckles. His skin was still hot, but the touch was hesitant, lacking the bruising force of the night before. "I do not know how to be in a house where the walls don't scream of duty. I am... sorry... that I tried to make you feel as small as I felt."

You only made a sound to acknowledge his statement.

"Does that satisfy you?" he asked, a tiny flicker of his usual bite returning to his tone, though it was softened by the way he refused to pull away from your personal space.

You smiled, “It does sweet Aemond, you surrender far sooner than I thought.” You teased.

You leaned in, pressing a soft, lingering kiss to his mouth that tasted of the morning air and the night's lingering heat. "Come now! We have to go to the market. It will be a long day, my sweet fire, and you are going to help me."

Your finger traced a slow, deliberate line up to the nape of his neck, tangling in his silver hair. The reaction was instantaneous; his hand shot out, his fingers locking around your waist with a possessive, bruising grip that pulled you flush against his chest once more.

"I am a Prince of the Realm," he reminded you, his voice dropping into that familiar, icy drawl, though the way he looked at your lips betrayed him. "I do not play porter for common merchants."

You didn't flinch at his tone, instead tilting your head back to meet his gaze with a spark of mischief in your eyes. "Then you are in luck," you whispered, "because I am anything but common."

"You are a menace," he rasped, his thumb tracing the curve of your hip through the linen. "You expect me to walk among the rabble? To carry baskets of grain like a beast of burden? If my brother or the Hand saw me now, they would think I’d been drugged by a Pentoshi sorceress."

"Perhaps you have been," you teased, stepping back just enough to make him feel the loss of your heat. "But the sun is up, and my 'needs' involve the market. If you want to be treated like a Prince, you can stay here and brood in the silence. If you want to be with me... you’ll carry the honey jars."

──────── Driftmark ────────

The market was a cacophony of shouting vendors and the heavy scent of roasted spices, but Aemond moved through it like a ghost of war, his hand never leaving the hilt of his sword. He loathed the press of the "common rabble" against his fine wools, his eye darting with lethal suspicion at anyone who dared step too close to you.

Long fingers rested there loosely, almost lazily—but the readiness beneath the gesture was unmistakable. The blade was not decoration. It was a promise. One he looked prepared to keep at the slightest provocation.

His single eye moved constantly.

It flicked from face to face, from the shadowed mouth of an alley to the shifting bodies of strangers brushing too close. Suspicion lived in every movement of him, sharp and alert, as if he expected a dagger to appear from the crowd at any moment. More than once a careless passerby stumbled too near, their shoulder grazing yours in the tight press of the street.

Each time it happened, Aemond’s reaction was immediate

The faintest tightening of his jaw. A slow turn of his head. That pale eye narrowing with a dangerous, icy patience.

The offenders felt it without understanding why. One man faltered mid-step beneath that gaze, suddenly eager to look elsewhere. A woman clutching a basket of figs hurriedly veered away, murmuring apologies to no one in particular. Something about him unsettled the crowd, some quiet instinct warning them that this was not a man to jostle lightly.

He loathed this place.

It was written plainly in the tight set of his mouth and the cold disdain that lingered in his expression. The crush of bodies irritated him, the unwashed press of the smallfolk brushing against the fine weave of his dark cloak as though they had any right to stand so close. The noise grated against his senses, a relentless pounding of voices and movement that made his patience wear thin.

But the greatest offense, it seemed, was how near they came to you.

Each time someone pushed too close, Aemond shifted almost imperceptibly, his tall frame angling just enough to block the path between you and the rest of the world. It was subtle—most would not notice it—but his body placed itself between you and the crowd with an instinctive certainty that left no room for question. A silent wall of steel and restrained violence.

A merchant shouted loudly beside you, waving a bundle of dyed cloth in the air, his elbow nearly knocking into your arm as he tried to capture the attention of passing buyers.

Aemond’s hand tightened on the hilt of his sword.

Not enough to draw it.

But enough that the man noticed.

The merchant’s voice faltered mid-sentence as he glanced up, meeting that pale, unblinking eye staring down at him with quiet, murderous disapproval. Whatever argument he had been shouting died instantly in his throat. He stepped back without a word, clutching his cloth bundle to his chest as if it might shield him from whatever cold fury lingered in the prince’s gaze.

Aemond said nothing. He rarely needed to.

"There she is," a voice chuckled, thick with a familiarity that made the hair on the back of Aemond’s neck stand up. A broad-shouldered merchant, a man whose sheets you had once shared in the long months before the Prince arrived, leaned across his counter. He didn't just look at you; he devoured you with his eyes, his gaze lingering on the curve of your throat. "I was beginning to think you’d traded our fun for that silver-haired ghost following you around. Come here, let me see if you still smell like jasmine."

He reached out, his hand bold and reaching for your waist—the very place Aemond’s hand had been all morning.

Aemond didn't just intervene; he exploded.

With a snarl that sounded more like Vhagar than a man, Aemond lunged. He caught the merchant’s wrist mid-air, the sound of bone snapping under his gloved grip echoing over the chatter of the crowd. Before the man could even scream, Aemond had his dagger unsheathed, the obsidian edge pressed so hard against the man’s jugular that a bead of dark blood welled instantly.

"You dare touch what is mine?" Aemond hissed, his voice a terrifying, vibrating whisper that felt like a blade. The sapphire in his eye was a cold, demonic fire. He leaned in until his nose brushed the merchant’s, his face a mask of lethal, unhinged possessiveness. "You speak of her as if she were a common whore. She is my wife. She is a Princess of the Blood in everything but name, and you are a maggot crawling in the dirt."

"I—I didn't—" the man wheezed, his eyes bulging with terror.

"If you ever look at her again—if you even dream of her—I will peel the skin from your frame and hang it from your own stall," Aemond growled, his hand tightening on the man’s throat until his face turned purple. "She belongs to me. Body, soul, and every breath she takes. Do you understand, or shall I carve the realization into your chest?"

He threw the man back into his jars of cinnamon and cloves, the glass shattering like ice. Aemond didn't wait. He grabbed your arm, his grip bruising and frantic, and practically dragged you through the dirt paths toward the manse.

The walk back was a blur of his white-hot fury. He was vibrating with it, his breath coming in ragged, jagged bursts.

"My wife?" you whispered, your heart hammering at the sheer intensity of his claim.

"Shut your mouth!" he roared, spinning on you the second you cleared the manse gates. He slammed the heavy oak doors shut with a violence that shook the walls. "You think this is funny? You stand there and let that... that peasant handle you? To speak of bedding you in the open street? I should go back and burn the entire district to ash!"

You made it to the manse, he stomped in letting go of your arm.

He paced the foyer like a caged dragon, his silver hair wild, his hands shaking as he gripped his own hair. "You are mine! Do you understand me? You are not to be touched, you are not to be looked at! I don't care who you were before I arrived—that woman is dead! You are under my shadow now, and if I find one more man who thinks he has a claim to you, I will make the Stepstones look like a summer festival!"

You didn't shrink away. You stood there, watching the Prince of Blood unravel over the mere thought of another man’s hand on you. You smiled softly, a slow, knowing curve of your lips that only seemed to make his blood boil more.

"You’re smiling?" he rasped, stalking toward you until your back hit the door. He loomed over you, his chest heaving against yours, his jealousy a physical, suffocating heat. "You find my rage amusing, Ghost?"

Your hands slid up his chest, feeling the frantic, erratic thrum of his heart through his doublet. “Wife?” you whispered against his lips, your voice a silken needle under his skin. “You called me your wife after one night? After only one spice trader?”

You didn't wait for his retort. You pressed a soft, lingering kiss to the corner of his mouth, then another to the sharp line of his jaw. You felt his breath hitch—that sharp, jagged intake of air that signaled his internal walls were crumbling again.

“I said it to silence the cur!” he hissed, though the venom was gone, replaced by a desperate, suffocating heat. He tried to pull his head back, to look down at you with the coldness he’d spent a lifetime perfecting, but you followed him, peppering small, wet kisses along his throat.

“You claimed me, Aemond,” you teased, your teeth grazing the sensitive skin just below his ear. “In front of the whole world. My sweet, jealous Prince.”

“I am not... I am not jealous,” he lied, his voice breaking as his hands found your waist. His grip was still bruising, still possessive, but the anger was rapidly being swallowed by a different kind of hunger. “I simply will not have my property insulted by a man who smells of cumin and sweat.”

“Property?” You laughed softly, a low, melodic sound that made his pupils dilate until the violet of his eye was almost entirely black. You kissed him again, deep and slow, your tongue teasing the seam of his lips until he groaned, a low, pained sound of pure surrender.

He shoved his hands into your hair, tilting your head back so he could look at you with an intensity that felt like a brand. “Yes,” he rasped, his forehead dropping against yours. “Mine. If I must be haunted by you, then no other man shall even look upon the Ghost. I have stuck my cock in you! You are simply mine now!”

He slid down your body, his knees hitting the cold marble with a dull thud. His hands, still trembling with the remnants of his rage, gripped your thighs, pulling you toward the edge of his patience. He began to kiss you through the heavy linen of your gown, his mouth hot and demanding, his teeth catching on the fabric as he searched for the heat beneath.

“Aemond—” you gasped, your fingers digging into his silver hair as the friction of his tongue through the cloth sent a jolt of electricity straight to your core.

He didn't answer. He couldn't. He was a man possessed. He hooked one of your legs over his shoulder, lifting it high to expose you to his singular, burning gaze. The shift was hiked up, leaving nothing but the thin barrier of your smallclothes, which were already damp from the sheer proximity of him.

He didn't wait. He pressed his face into the apex of your thighs, his nose dragging against your sensitive skin before his mouth found you. He kissed you right through the material, a deep, suctioning press that made your knees buckle.

“Oh—” you whimpered, your head slamming back against the oak door as your body arched into him.

He let out a muffled growl against your skin, his hands sliding up to cup your buttocks, holding you steady as he devoured you. He was being intentionally rough, intentionally thorough, as if he could drink the memory of any other man out of your blood. The cold Prince was gone; there was only this—the wet, rhythmic sound of his devotion and the way he looked up at you, his sapphire eye dark and unhinged, watching the way you came apart in his hands.

“You are mine,” he rasped against the damp fabric, his breath scorching. “Tell me. Tell me who you belong to.”

Aemond didn’t give you the chance to answer. He was done with words, done with the linen barrier that dared to keep him from what he had claimed as his. With a violent, single-handed tug, he ripped the center seam of your smallclothes, the silk fluttering to the floor like a fallen flag.

He groaned at the sight of you—glistening, swollen, and completely exposed to his singular, starving gaze. He didn't hesitate. He buried his face against you, his tongue lashing out with a broad, rhythmic stroke that made your toes curl into the marble. He wasn't gentle; he was a predator at a feast, his tongue swirling and deep-diving into your heat while his thumbs pried you open even wider.

"Aemond—ah! Aemond!" You shrieked, the sound echoing off the high vaulted ceilings of the foyer. Your hands were frantic in his hair, alternately pulling him closer and trying to find purchase on his shoulders as the world dissolved into white heat.

He looked up at you for a split second, his face smeared with your cream, his sapphire eye burning with a terrifying, carnal pride. "Look at me," he commanded, his voice a guttural rasp. "Remember this when you think of that merchant. Remember who owns the breath in your lungs."

He went back down, his teeth grazing your clit with a sharp, calculated nip that sent a violent tremor through your entire frame. You were a sobbing, moaning mess, your back drumming against the oak door as he used his tongue to mimic the act of his cock, driving deep and then flicking upward until you were hovering on the very edge of a shattering peak.

His fingers joined the assault, two of them thrusting into you with a bruising, relentless pace that matched the lashing of his tongue. He was relentless, punishing you for every second you hadn't been his, for every man who had ever looked at you before he arrived.

"Please—Aemond—now—" you begged, your hips bucking uncontrollably against his mouth.

He let out a muffled, triumphant sound against your thigh. He didn't stop until he felt the first violent clench of your climax. He drank in your release, his tongue working frantically to catch every drop of your surrender, his hands holding you so tight he would surely leave the ghost of his fingerprints on your skin for days to come.

He stayed there for a long moment, his forehead resting against your damp inner thigh, his chest heaving as he stared at the floor. The Prince of Blood was on his knees, covered in you, looking utterly destroyed by his own conquest.

His kiss was focused on your clitoris with a punishing, rhythmic devotion that had your head snapping back against the oak door, your breath hitching in ragged, broken sobs. You were dangerously overstimulated, your nerves frayed to the point of screaming, but he wouldn't let you drift away.

"Who do you belong to?" he demanded, his voice a muffled, guttural growl against your thighs. He looked up for a fleeting second, his face flushed with a terrifying, carnal pride. "Who? Tell me, you fisherman’s daughter!"

"You!" you shrieked, your fingers tangling in his silver hair, alternately pulling him closer and pushing him away as the pleasure became too much to bear. "Only you!"

He let out a sharp, triumphant sound, his teeth grazing you in a way that made your entire frame convulse. He pried your legs even wider, his thumbs digging into the soft flesh of your hips to anchor you.

"Say I’m your husband!" he commanded, the words coming out as a desperate, jagged rasp."Say it!"

"You are—you are!" you sobbed, your voice echoing through the vaulted stone foyer. Your knees buckled, and you would have slid to the floor if not for his crushing grip. "My husband! My Prince!"

The admission seemed to snap the last thread of his restraint. Aemond rose from his knees in one fluid, violent motion, his breath coming in scorched gasps. He didn't lead you to the bed; he didn't even move you from the door. He simply unfastened his leathers, his cock thick and pulsing with a frantic heat.

He hoisted you up by your thighs, his hand gripping your ass tightly, his spread your ass cheeks and drove himself into you with a single, brutal thrust that buried him to the hilt. You gasped, the air leaving your lungs as he fucked you, with an intensity that made the heavy doors rattle on their hinges.

Aemond’s facade didn't just crack; it disintegrated. The man who prided himself on being an untouchable weapon of war was now a shuddering mess of raw, bleeding emotion. He hammered into you with a rhythmic, jarring desperation, his hips slamming against yours with raw possession.

He pulled back just enough to see your face, his hands shaking as they cupped your cheeks, his thumbs smearing the tears and sweat across your skin. His eye was wide, wet, and filled with a terrifying, vulnerable light you had never seen before.

“Look at me, please,” he begged, the word sounding like a sob as he drove deep, his cock pulsing inside you. The command was gone, replaced by a starving, hollowed-out need. “Tell me I’m your sweet Aemond. Tell me I’m your sweet husband. Tell me—please.”

He was sobbing for the validation, his forehead crashing against yours.

“Aemond… my sweet Aemond,” you gasped, your voice breaking as you wrapped your arms around his neck, pulling him into the crook of your shoulder.

“Say it again,” he rasped, his eyes fluttering shut as he buried his face in your hair, his movements becoming frantic and uncoordinated. He was coming apart, his climax hitting him with the force of a physical blow. “Tell me I’m yours. Tell me you won’t let them take me back to the war.”

“You’re—you’re stuck with me.” You whimpered

He let out a long, pained cry as he came, his whole body stiffening as he spilled into you. He held you there, pinned against the door, his chest heaving as he wept silently into your neck—a Prince of Blood finally surrendering to the ghost he was meant to kill.

Aemond stayed buried inside you, his weight heavy and grounding, but the air around him was already beginning to crystallize back into ice. He was retreating into the safety of his titles, his fingers curling into the wood of the door behind your head as if trying to find his grip on reality.

“That was—that was weakness,” he whispered, the words brushing against your lips like a confession of a sin. His nose grazed yours, his breathing still shallow and erratic, but his tone was regaining that sharp, defensive edge. “I am—I am not weak.”

“I know,” you breathed, your hands softly stroking the damp silver hair at the base of his neck.

“You are but a ghost,” he murmured, though he didn't pull away. He said it as if he were trying to remind himself that you weren't real, that this house wasn't his home, and that the warmth between your thighs was just a fleeting trick of the light.

“Yes,” you sighed, the sound echoing the bittersweet truth of your existence in his world. “I am but the Ghost of Pentos.”

“I am a prince,” he insisted, his eye finally opening to search yours, looking for a challenge, for an insult, for anything that would justify his return to the cold.

“I know,” you whispered back, leaning forward to press a gentle, feather-light kiss to his lips. It wasn't a kiss of passion, but of understanding—a quiet acknowledgment of the boy hiding behind the crown.

“A moment of weakness,” he whispered one last time, his eyes fluttering shut as he leaned his forehead against yours.

“Yes my dear husband—so weak.” You whispered softly, “So weak.”

──────── Driftmark ────────

The few week that followed was a strange, silent dance of domesticity and denial. Aemond remained a storm cloud in human form—grumpy, sharp-tongued, and perpetually scowling at the "insignificance" of your daily chores. Yet, for all his complaining, he never left your side.

He helped you pull the fishing nets, his fine leather gloves ruined by salt and scales, hissing about the indignity while his strong arms did the work of three men. He sat in your kitchen, peeling vegetables with the same lethal precision he used to sharpen his blade, muttering that a Prince of the Blood should be commanding armies, not dicing onions. But every time you brushed against him, he would lean into your touch with a subtle, desperate hunger, his "coldness" melting for a split second before he remembered to be a monster again.

On the final evening, the sun dipped low, painting the Pentoshi coast in shades of bruised gold. Aemond stood by the window, his silhouette sharp and lonely.

“I must return to King’s Landing,” he whispered, the words sounding heavy, as if they were made of lead.

“You must,” you copied his tone, teasing him softly as you leaned against the doorframe, watching the way the light caught the silver of his hair.

He turned his head slightly, his sapphire eye fixed on you with an unreadable intensity. The "moment of weakness" from the foyer hadn't truly ended; it had just settled into the marrow of his bones. He looked at you—his ghost, his wife of shadows—and for a moment, the Prince was gone.

"The moon has turned," he said, his voice dropping to a low, jagged rasp. "I have a crown to defend and a brother to keep on a throne. I cannot stay in this dream forever."

He walked toward you, his boots clicking rhythmically on the stone until he was towering over you. He reached out, his gloved hand cupping your jaw with a possessive, territorial grip. "But do not think for a moment that you are free of me. I am leaving a mark on this place. I am leaving Vhagar’s shadow over your roof."

He leaned down, his breath warm against your ear. "If I return and find another man has even dared to stand where I have stood... I will burn this entire city until only the two of us are left in the ashes."

“Come back to me, soon—or I will have to find you and I am better at accomplishing my goals, husband.” You whispered

Aemond’s hand tightened on your jaw, his thumb dragging across your lower lip with a pressure that was both a caress and a claim. At the word husband, a flicker of something raw and untamable flashed in his eye—a mixture of the pride he tried to kill and the devotion he couldn't hide.

"You threaten a Prince?" he rasped, his voice dropping into that dangerous, low vibration that usually preceded a kill. But as his gaze searched yours, he saw the steady, mocking spark of your resolve. He knew you weren't afraid of his dragon or his blade; you were the only thing in the world that saw him clearly, and that made you the most dangerous creature he had ever encountered.

"I am better at accomplishing my goals, husband," you whispered again, your breath hitching as he pulled you closer, his chest a solid wall of leather and heat against yours.

"Then you had best stay within these walls and wait for the shadow of wings," he hissed, his lips hovering a hair's breadth from yours. "Because if you come to King’s Landing, I will have no choice but to lock you in the highest cell of the White Sword Tower, just so I can be sure the world hasn't stolen you back."

He kissed you then—one final, brutal, and desperate seal of his claim. It tasted of salt and the bitter regret of a man who was leaving his heart behind in a city he was supposed to have conquered. He broke away abruptly, the cold mask slamming back into place as he adjusted his cloak, his silver hair catching the first light of the moon.

"Do not test my patience, wife," he warned, walking toward the balcony where the wind was already picking up. "I will return. And when I do, I expect a better welcome than a lecture on spices."

He stepped out into the night, a low whistle escaping his lips. A moment later, the very foundation of the manse shook as the Great Hoar, Vhagar, let out a truncated roar that vibrated in your very teeth. Aemond didn't look back. He couldn't. He mounted his beast and rose into the sky, a dark, jagged silhouette against the stars, heading back to a war that suddenly felt very cold and very small compared to the warmth of the woman he had left behind.

─────The Halls of the Red Keep ─────

Moons later, back at King’s Landing

Before Viserys I death, Targaryen Golden Era

The heavy silence of the Small Council chamber was a world away from the roar of the Pentosi surf, yet to Aemond, the air here felt thinner, colder—devoid of the salt and heat that made him feel alive.

Grandfather was still talking. Something about the Triarchy, something about grain tithes and the mounting cost of the iron-clad defense of the Gullet. Aemond didn't care. His gloved hand moved with agonizing slowness, rising to his face. He hooked his thumb beneath the leather of his index finger, pulling the glove off with a sharp snap of tension.

His bare fingertip rose, trembling almost imperceptibly, until it hovered just over his lower lip.

He didn't touch it yet. He just felt the phantom heat of it. There, on the right side, was the jagged little ridge—the "knick" you had carved into him with his own blade. It wasn't a clean scar; it was a rough, raised seal of ownership.

One flesh.

He finally pressed his finger against the scar, his nail catching on the uneven skin. The sensation sent a jolt of electricity straight to his gut, a sharp, visceral memory of the way you had looked in the moonlight, blood smeared across your chin, your eyes wild with the same ancient hunger that lived in his marrow. He could almost taste the copper. He could almost feel the weight of your body pressing him into the cold, wet sand, the way you had spread yourself open to take every bit of the man the world called a monster.

One heart.

You were astride him, a vision of moonlit silk and lethal intent. Aemond’s large, calloused hands were buried beneath you, his fingers digging into the soft flesh of your ass, spreading you wide and pulling you down onto him with a desperate, rhythmic violence. He was thrusting upward, his hips snapping with a hunger that seemed bottomless, seeking the very hilt of his pleasure within you.

"Please," he whimpered, the sound lost in the salt-spray. He looked up at you, his sapphire eye blown wide, glassy with a mix of agony and worship. "Make it real. Cut the world away."

With a hand that didn't tremble, you reached into the leather sheath at his hip. You pulled out the Valyrian steel dagger he always carried—the blade he used for his enemies, now turned toward his own salvation. The steel caught the moon’s reflection, a silver sliver of death between you.

You didn't hesitate. You pressed the edge of the blade to your own lower lip, feeling the sharp, cold sting as you drew a thin line of crimson. Then, you leaned down, the tip of the dagger grazing the air between your mouths before you pressed the cold steel to his lip. You sliced just enough to let the blood well up, dark and heavy.

Aemond didn't flinch. He let out a low, guttural groan, his hips bucking harder beneath you, his fingers bruising your skin as he held you open to receive him.

You dropped the dagger into the sand and crushed your mouth to his. The taste was metallic and hot—a chaotic mixture of salt, spit, and the copper tang of Targaryen blood. You bit into his wounded lip, deepening the cut, and he returned the favor with a feral desperation, his teeth sinking into your skin as if he wanted to consume you entirely.

The crash of the waves seemed to pause as the blood met, the copper heat of it sealing the seam of your lips. Aemond’s hands were shaking now, his fingers digging into your hips with a strength that would leave bruises shaped like his devotion. He was open to you—completely, terrifyingly undone—his body shuddering as he pulsed inside you, his rhythm frantic and seeking.

He pulled back just an inch, his lip glistening with the dark crimson of your shared wounds. His sapphire eye was wet, burning with a feverish, holy light as he stared up at you through the silver curtain of his hair.

"Say it," he choked out, his voice a raw, broken rasp. "Bind me, before the world finds us. Say the words."

As you leaned down, your sweat-slicked skin sliding against his, you pressed your forehead against his. You could feel his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird, desperate for the cage you offered. Together, your voices rose over the roar of the tide, a shared breath of salt and iron.

“One flesh,” you whispered against his bleeding mouth.

“One heart,” he groaned, his hips surging upward, burying himself as deep as the earth would allow, his eyes closing in a spasm of pure, agonizing bliss.

“One soul,” you both breathed, the Valyrian weight of the vow settling over the beach like a shroud of dragonfire.

“Now and forever.”

The moment the final word left your lips, Aemond let out a sound that was less a man’s cry and more a soul being fractured and reset. He buckled beneath you, his climax hitting him with the force of a physical blow, his head snapping back into the wet sand. He clung to you, his arms wrapping around your back to crush you against him, his face buried in the crook of your neck as he sobbed with relief.

"Aemond?"

The voice was sharp. Impatient.

Aemond’s hand dropped instantly, his face snapping back into a mask of terrifying, porcelain-smooth indifference. He looked across the table at his mother, Alicent, whose eyes were red-rimmed with worry, and then at Otto, who was watching him with a calculating, narrow-eyed gaze.

"You seem... distracted, my Prince," Otto remarked, his quill pausing over a scroll. "Is the wound from your 'skirmish' in the East bothering you? Perhaps the Grand Maester should provide a salve for your lip. It looks inflamed."

Aemond’s jaw tightened, the muscle leaping in his cheek. He felt the secret pulse of the blood-bond beneath his skin, a hot, rhythmic drumming that seemed to mock the stagnant air of the Red Keep.

"The wound is healing exactly as I intended, Grandfather," Aemond said, his voice a low, jagged rasp that silenced the room. He leaned back, his sapphire eye catching the light with a predatory gleam. "It requires no salve. Some marks are meant to stay."

He felt the heavy weight of the Valyrian steel dagger at his hip—the same blade that had tasted both your blood and his. He wondered if you were standing on the cliffs now, looking toward the West, feeling the same pull of the chain that bound him to your feet.

This was the agonizing space between the vow and the reality. This was the time when he had to leave the "Ghost" behind to return to the den of vipers, long before a cradle ever sat in the corner of your manse.

The Red Keep felt like a cage of cold stone. Aemond moved through the halls like a wraith, his presence so icy that even the Kingsguard lowered their eyes as he passed. He was back in the blacks and greens of his station, the leather of his doublet stiff and suffocating compared to the loose linen he’d worn while pinned beneath you on the sand.

He was a man divided.

In the evenings, when the sun dipped low and painted the Blackwater in hues of bruised purple, he would find himself in the highest balcony of the White Sword Tower. He wouldn't go to the brothels. The very thought of a stranger’s hands on his skin made his stomach turn with a violent, possessive revulsion. He had been marked by Valyrian steel and ancient blood; he was no longer available for the common hungers of men.

He stood in the shadows, his thumb tracing the jagged, healing knick on his lip. It was his only tether to sanity.

“I am not a fool,” he whispered to the biting wind, his voice a jagged rasp. “I do not love a phantom. I do not ache for a woman who belongs to the sea.”

But the lie tasted like copper and salt. He missed the way you would bite back. He missed the way you laughed at his brooding, stripping away the Prince until only the man remained. He missed the silence of Pentos, where he wasn't a kinslayer or a monster—he was simply yours.

He would never admit it to his mother, who looked at him with such pride. He would never admit it to Aegon, who would only mock the "softness" of his brother.

The shadows of the bedchamber were long and suffocating, the only light coming from the dying embers in the hearth. Aemond lay stripped to his waist, the fine silk sheets tangled around his legs like a snare. He looked like a fallen god, his pale skin glowing in the firelight, but his face was twisted in a grimace of pure, unadulterated longing.

His hand was closed around himself, his knuckles white as he moved with a slow, agonizing friction. It wasn't the easy release he used to find in the brothels; it was a ritual of torment. Every slide of his palm was an attempt to conjure the memory of your touch, the way your thighs had felt gripping his waist, the way you had looked down at him while you both bled.

He squeezed his eye shut, his breath hitching in his throat.

“Gods—wife,” he whispered, the word a ragged, forbidden prayer against the crook of his arm.

He could almost feel the phantom weight of you on top of him. He could almost smell the salt and the crushed herbs on your skin. His hips buckled upward, a sharp, desperate thrust into the empty air of the room, his teeth sinking into his scarred lower lip until he tasted the faint, metallic ghost of that night on the beach.

He thrust his hips up, his spine arching off the bed as he chased the ghost of your friction. He could almost feel your hands spreading him open, your fingers digging into his skin, claiming every inch of his royal blood for your own. The memory of your teeth sinking into his shoulder, claiming him like a beast claims its mate, made his cock throb with a painful, relentless heat.

He was whimpering now—the "One-Eyed Terror" reduced to a shaking, sweating mess in the dark. He wanted to feel the sting of your nails raking down his back. He wanted the copper taste of your kiss to drown out the rot of this city.

"Wife... gods, please," he choked out, his pace becoming frantic, his knuckles white in the moonlight.

He was picturing the way you looked right before the end—the way your face shattered with pleasure, your body tightening around him like a vice, dragging the soul right out of his chest. He buckled, his legs shaking as he surged one last time, his voice breaking into a loud, pained cry that echoed off the cold stone walls.

"I miss you!" As he came, the release was a violent, shuddering explosion that left him gasping for air, his heart hammering against his ribs like a war drum. He slumped back into the silks, his chest heaving, the cooling sweat on his skin feeling like ice. He lay there, staring at the ceiling, his hand still twitching against his thigh.

He was the Protector of the Realm, the rider of the largest dragon in the world, and yet he was nothing more than a starving man haunting his own bed. He had been marked by a ghost, and the mark was burning him alive.

The cold water of the basin hadn't been enough to wash away the scent of his own desperation. Aemond had moved like a man possessed, saddling Vhagar under the cover of a storm that the guards mistook for a natural tempest. The flight across the Narrow Sea was a blur of freezing wind and stinging spray, his heart beating a frantic rhythm against his ribs: Need you. Need you. Need you.

But when he arrived at the manse, the silence was a physical blow. The house was empty. The bed was cold.

He waited. For hours, he paced the small stone kitchen like a caged predator, the moon rising higher and fueling the dark, toxic brew of his emotions. He had spent moons starving for you, rotting in that gods-forsaken capital, touching himself until his skin was raw while imagining your mouth on his. And you? You were simply gone.

Then, the click of the latch.

The door creaked open, and the scent of the sea rolled in—fresh, cold, and undeniable. You moved through the threshold, humming a soft, haunting tune that he recognized from the night of your vows. You were carrying a heavy barrel of fish, your sleeves rolled up, your silver hair messy and windblown. You looked radiant, healthy, and entirely unbothered by the absence that had been killing him.

Aemond stepped out of the shadows, the hearth-light catching the sapphire in his eye like a spark in a tinderbox.

"Where have you been?" his voice was a low, terrifying rasp, jagged with the months of suppressed silence.

He didn't wait for an answer. He moved across the floor in three long, predatory strides, his boots thundering against the stone. He kicked the door shut behind you with a deafening bang and shoved you back against it, his hands slamming into the wood on either side of your head.

"I have been rotting in King’s Landing," he hissed, his face inches from yours, his breath hot and smelling of salt. "I have been waking up in the dark reaching for a ghost. I have been spending my nights with my hand on myself, whispering your name like a dying man!"

His gaze dropped to your mouth, to the scar on your lip that he had helped carve. His jealousy was an oily, suffocating thing. Who had seen you today? Who had helped you with the fish? Who had looked at the woman who belonged to him?

"And I come back to find you humming?" he growled, his hand moving from the door to your throat—not to hurt, but to claim, his thumb pressing firmly against your pulse. "You look as though you haven't missed me for a second. You look as though my blood hasn't been screaming for yours every night."

The crash of the barrel was the only sound in the room, fish scattering across the stone floor like silver coins, but neither of you looked down. Your voice—that soft, breathless whisper—sliced through his rage like a hot blade through ice.

“Husband. Husband?”

The word hit him harder than a physical blow. Aemond’s chest heaved, his hand still firm against the column of your throat, but his fingers trembled. Hearing you say it—actually hearing the title he had been obsessing over in the cold silence of the Red Keep—sent a violent jolt of electricity through him.

"Don't call me that unless you mean it," he rasped, though his grip softened, his palm sliding up to cup your jaw with a bruising, desperate tenderness. "Don't use that word to quiet me when I’ve been half-mad with the hunger for you."

His sapphire eye searched yours, looking for the reflection of the same torment he’d endured. He wanted to see that you were haunted, too. He wanted to see that the bed had been too big, the nights too quiet, and the air too thin without him.

"I have spent every hour of every day since I left feeling like my heart was being dragged behind Vhagar on a chain," he confessed, his forehead dropping to thud against yours. He was shaking, the "Prince of Blood" finally crumbling under the weight of his own devotion. "I didn't come here for a greeting. I didn't come here for your humming."

He tilted your head back, his thumb tracing the scar on your lower lip, the one that matched his own. His gaze was dark, predatory, and utterly shattered.

"I came for the woman who bit me on the sand. I came for the only person who knows I’m not a monster, but a man who belongs to her." He let out a low, pained groan, his body crushing yours against the door, his hips pinning you there with a possessiveness that left no room for breath. "Tell me you’re mine. Tell me you’ve been starving for this as I have."

“Gods! If I saw—if I saw Vhagar! I would’ve ran to you—I would have run here! I—”

The frantic explanation died in your throat, drowned out by the roar of your own blood. You didn't finish the sentence; you couldn't. You reached up, your hands tangling into the silver silk of his hair, and pulled his head down with a desperation that matched his own.

You cut yourself off by crashing your mouth against his.

It wasn't a soft greeting. It was a collision of salt, hunger, and months of suppressed agony. You kissed him with the ferocity of the storm he’d just flown through, your teeth grazing his lower lip—right where the scar lived—seeking the metallic tang of the blood-bond you’d shared on the beach. You tasted the cold air of the Narrow Sea on him, but beneath it was the familiar, intoxicating heat of Aemond—the man who belonged to you.

Aemond let out a sound that was half-growl, half-sob against your lips. His hands, which had been pinning you to the door, suddenly shifted, grabbing your waist and lifting you off your feet until your legs instinctively wrapped around his hips. He shoved you harder against the wood, his mouth devouring yours as if he were trying to swallow your very soul to keep it safe inside him.

"Mine," he growled into the kiss, his voice vibrating deep in his chest. "Say it. Say you're mine."

He didn't wait for the words. He began to move, his hips snapping forward to grind against you through the layers of your clothes, his hands roaming over your back with a frantic, bruising possessiveness. The "Prince of Blood" was gone, replaced by a man who was drowning and had finally found his shore.

The word "husband" left your lips like a broken prayer, a soft, trembling sound that seemed to shatter the last of his iron resolve. You clung to him, your fingers digging into the leather of his doublet, your face pressed into the heat of his neck as the scent of him—smoke, rain, and old blood—overwhelmed your senses.

“Just stay, husband,” you whimpered against his skin, the vibration of your voice sending a shudder through his massive frame. “Please—husband, just stay. Please.”

Aemond’s breath hitched, a jagged, agonizing sound caught in his throat. He squeezed his eye shut, his forehead thudding against yours as he anchored you to the door. For months, he had been the stone-faced executioner of the Greens, a man of ice and duty, but here, under the weight of your plea, he was nothing but a man starving for a home he wasn't allowed to keep.

"You don't know what you're asking," he rasped, his voice cracking with a vulnerability that would have horrified the Small Council. He pulled back just enough to frame your face in his large, shaking hands, his thumb brushing over your wet cheek. "If I stay, I am a deserter. If I stay, they will come for us with fire. They will try to take you from me to punish my weakness."

His gaze dropped to your mouth, to the scar that bound your souls together. His jealousy, his rage, his pride—it all dissolved into a singular, desperate need.

"But gods," he breathed, his sapphire eye burning with a terrifying, absolute devotion. "To wake up beside you... to never hear my name called by a herald again... I would give up the throne. I would give up Vhagar. I would give up the world just to be the man who cleans those fish for you."

He didn't pull away. Instead, he collapsed into you, his weight heavy and honest, his arms wrapping around your waist as he buried his face in your hair. He was a Prince of Blood, but in this moment, he was just your husband.

The wood of the door groaned behind you as Aemond’s weight crushed you into it, his body a frantic, unyielding machine of muscle and desperation. He was buried deep within you, his cock a thick, throbbing anchor that seemed to reach for your very heart. He moved with a violent, rhythmic friction, his leather doublet scratching against your skin as he drove himself into you again and again, as if he could sew your bodies together and never have to pull apart.

“Aemond, please,” you whimpered, the sound breaking against his ear as your legs locked tighter around his waist, pulling him in until there wasn't a sliver of air left between you. “Don't go back. Let the world burn without you. Let them have their throne... just stay. Stay in me. Stay here.”

Aemond let out a jagged, animalistic sound—a sob that turned into a growl. He reached down, his fingers digging into the sensitive flesh of your ass, spreading you even wider to take the full, punishing length of his thrusts. Each surge was a confession, his hips snapping forward with a primal hunger that made your vision blur.

“I can’t,” he gasped, his teeth grazing your shoulder, biting down until you cried out in a mix of pain and pleasure. “Gods, wife... you’re so tight... you feel like home. I’m starving for you. I’ve been dying for months.”

He pulled back just an inch, only to slam back home with a wet, heavy thud that made the scattered fish on the floor vibrate. He was shaking, his sweat dripping onto your chest, his sapphire eye fixed on yours with a terrifying, religious devotion.

“Stay,” you pleaded, your voice a ragged thread as you felt your climax beginning to coil deep in your belly. “If you love me, if I’m your wife... don’t leave me with just a ghost. Stay and put another babe in me. Stay and be a father. Please, husband... please.”

At the word babe, Aemond’s control shattered. His pace became frantic, a blurring, slippery friction that made your breath catch in a series of high, desperate hitches. He gripped your hair, tilting your head back so he could see the marks he was leaving on you.

“I want to,” he choked out, his voice breaking as he surged one last time, his entire body going rigid. “I want to fill you until you can’t walk... until you’re heavy with my name... until I’m nothing but a memory of a Prince.”

He let out a long, pained cry as he came, his release a hot, staggering flood that seemed to go on forever. He slumped against you, his head falling into the crook of your neck, his chest heaving as he sobbed with the pure, agonizing weight of a man who had found his soul only to realize he had to leave it behind again.

──────── Driftmark ────────

The transition from the heat of the night to the cold clarity of morning was jarring. You stepped into the kitchen, the ache in your thighs a lingering reminder of his desperation, fully expecting to find the bed empty and the skies filled with the sound of departing wings.

Instead, there he was.

The "Prince of Blood" was gone, replaced by a man wearing the very thing he’d sworn was beneath him—a thin, sea-green linen tunic that clung to the broad span of his shoulders. His sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, revealing the corded muscle of his forearms, now splattered with brine and scales. He looked like a man of the coast, a man who belonged to the salt and the spray, if not for the lethal, rhythmic precision with which he handled the blade.

His back was to you, his posture stiff and unyielding. The domesticity of the scene was undercut by the sheer, freezing frost of his tone.

"If I am to stay, I must say you mustn't keep the home so!" he snapped, not even turning to look at you. His voice was a whip-crack of his usual cold authority, masking the vulnerability of the night before. "The fish were everywhere. A disgrace. One would think a 'Ghost' could at least manage a broom."

He slammed the knife down through a silver spine, the sound echoing in the small room. He was trying to reclaim his mask, trying to pretend that he hadn't whimpered into your neck or begged you to bind him. He was gutting those fish as if they were his enemies in the Gullet, his jaw set in a hard, jagged line.

But his ears were pink, and the way his hand trembled slightly as he reached for the next fish betrayed him. He wasn't truly angry at the mess; he was angry at how easily he had succumbed to the life he wasn't supposed to want.

"Sit," he commanded, finally casting a sharp, sapphire glance over his shoulder. It was a kingly order delivered in a fisherman's rags. "I have made a mess of the floor, and I'll not have you slipping on it while I'm forced to play servant especially while you carry my son.”

Aemond froze, the knife hovering dangerously over a half-gutted sea bass. The moment your arms cinched around his waist, he stiffened, his instinctual armor of ice clashing with the liquid heat of your body pressing against his back.

When your lips found the sensitive cord of his neck, he let out a low, involuntary moan. It was a sound of pure, unadulterated surrender that he immediately followed with a sharp, huffed breath of self-loathing. He squeezed his eye shut, his knuckles whitening around the hilt of the knife, his head tilting back just a fraction to give you better access even as his mind screamed at him to remain the Prince.

“The green suits you, husband,” you whispered against his skin, your breath hitching as you felt the frantic, heavy thud of his heart against your forearms.

"It is a rag," he rasped, though his voice lacked any real bite. He sounded like a man fighting a losing battle against his own skin. "It is a fisherman's shroud. I look like a commoner from the docks of Spicetown."

Despite his words, he didn't pull away. He leaned back into you, his weight settling against your chest, his breathing turning shallow and uneven. The "Cold Prince" was melting, his resolve dissolving into the sea-green linen he had claimed to hate.

"You are doing this on purpose," he muttered, a shudder running through him as you sucked a mark into his throat—a mark that wouldn't be hidden by a high collar. "You are marking me again. How am I to walk through the streets of Pentos looking like he was mauled by a sea-cat?"

He dropped the knife with a dull clatter and turned in your arms, his hands—still damp and smelling of salt—finding your waist to pull you flush against him. His eye was dark, swirling with a mixture of shame and a bottomless, aching love.

"I am a mess of scales and brine," he whispered, his forehead dropping to rest against yours, "and you are a witch who has turned a dragon into a lapdog. If I stay another hour, I fear I shall never be able to hold a sword again without wishing it were a fishing net."

──────── Driftmark ────────

9 moons later — birth of Sea Snake

Aemond moved with a slow, rhythmic grace that still felt like a miracle to behold. He stepped toward the cradle, his large frame casting a shadow over the fussing babe. Little silver-haired fingers clawed at the air, desperate for the solid strength they had come to know as safety.

"Patience, little sea-snake," Aemond murmured, his voice a low, vibrating hum that seemed to settle the child instantly.

He lifted the boy, his calloused hands—hands that had once burned cities—cradling the babe with a terrifyingly gentle precision. He tucked the child into the crook of his neck, the sea-green linen of his tunic bunching under the babe’s tiny, grasping fists. A small, private smile rested on Aemond’s lips, though his brow furrowed as he looked down at his son.

"Husband!" your voice drifted in from the garden, bright and commanding. "Bring Corlys to me! The sun is perfect for him, and I need help with these herbs!"

Aemond stiffened for a fraction of a second at the name, a shadow of his old, princely pride flickering in his sapphire eye. He stepped to the doorway, the babe resting contentedly against his chest.

"Must you call him that?" Aemond called back, his tone a mix of feigned exhaustion and lingering stubbornness. "Corlys. It tastes of Driftmark and old salt. I still say he looks like a Daeron. Or an Aerys. A name with a bit of fire in the marrow, not just... driftwood."

You looked up from the dirt, your hands covered in rich, dark soil, a mischievous glint in your eyes that made his heart skip a beat.

"You can name the next one!" you shouted back, laughing as you wiped a smudge of dirt onto your cheek. "But this one is mine, and he is a Corlys! Now bring him here before I name the hound Aegon just to spite you!"

Aemond let out a huff of a laugh—a real, grounded sound that would have been unrecognizable to anyone in King's Landing. He looked down at the boy in his arms, whose eyes were wide and curious.

"You hear that?" Aemond whispered, nuzzling the babe’s silver temple. "Your mother is a tyrant. A beautiful, ruthless tyrant. And apparently, she is already planning to populate this entire coast with little ghosts and princes."

He stepped out into the sunlight, the "Prince of Blood" fully surrendered to you and he is now the “Fisherman's Husband”. He began moving towards you with the only crown he ever truly wanted resting against his shoulder but the moment soon dissolved. Aemond’s smile didn’t just fade; it turned to pure ice.

The babe, sensing the sudden spike of lethal tension in his father’s posture, let out a soft, confused whimper and clutched tighter at the sea-green linen of Aemond's tunic. The peaceful morning in the garden was instantly shattered by the arrival of a messenger bearing a seal of dark wax—a three-headed dragon, but stamped with the distinct, arrogant flourish of Dragonstone.

Aemond’s sapphire eye fixed on the parchment in your hand, burning with a sudden, vicious fire.

Daemon Targaryen. The Rogue Prince. The man whose ghost had haunted Aemond’s entire youth. A dark, ugly jealousy—born from a lifetime of being compared to the man, and a sudden, sharp protectiveness over you—reared its head.

"Op—open it" Aemond instanced, his voice dropping into that low, dangerous rasp that belonged to the Red Keep's executioners. He shifted your son in his arms, the boy squirming against his rigid chest, sensing the dangerous current vibrating through his father.

You sighed softly, brushing your hands against your skirts to rid them of the garden soil, your calm a stark contrast to his rising storm.

With a steady hand, you broke the seal and unrolled the parchment. Aemond loomed over your shoulder, his breath hot and sharp against your ear, his eye scanning the elegant, slashing script of his uncle.

To my clever sister,

The realm sings of a great tragedy. They say the One-Eyed Prince is dead, drowned at the bottom of the God’s Eye. Yet, I find myself doubting the waters. Your father misses you terribly, the girls miss you, and Luke and Jace can’t wait to finally meet you and see the peace you’ve built. Your mother who visits you often has yet to stop speaking about her namesday visit.

But, I have my suspicions, sweet girl. I suspect a certain 'dead' prince may be nesting in your hidden manor, hiding from the fire he started. You always did have a way of doing the unexpected.

Bring him. Consider this an invitation to a family dinner at Driftmark, far away from the toxic reach of the Greens. Let us see if the fisherman's life has softened his edge.

—D.

Aemond let out a sharp, trembling breath, a sound that was half-laugh, half-snarl. The jealousy that had flared at Daemon's name twisted into something far more complex—a mixture of profound shock, lingering paranoia, and a bitter taste of his own past.

"A family dinner," Aemond hissed, his knuckles whitening where he held your squirming son. "He writes to you with the familiarity of a lover, speaks of my death as a joke, and invites the 'Ghost' to sit at a table with Lucerys and Jacaerys. The very boys who took my eye. The boys whose inheritance I swore to burn."

He stepped in front of you, forcing you to look at him. His face was a mask of cold, pale fury, but beneath it, his sapphire eye was frantic.

"He knows," Aemond whispered, his jaw tight. "The Rogue Prince knows I am alive, and he teases you for keeping me like a pet. Tell me, wife... did you look for his shadow in the sky before I came to your bed? Does he think he can simply invite the rider of Vhagar to break bread with the Blacks as if we are common cousins sharing a tavern?"

The cold, defensive armor Aemond had thrown up instantly began to fracture. His sapphire eye darted down, fixed on the place where your swelling belly brushed against him. The sudden reminder of the new life growing between you—another bond, another anchor tying him to this soil—stilled the frantic, violent rhythm of his heart.

“You’re dramatic,” you whispered, clutching the underside of your stomach.

Aemond’s jaw worked, a muscle leaping in his cheek as he tried to maintain his icy, princely glare, but the sheer absurdity of his jealousy was crumbling under the warmth of your touch.

“I’ve never once thought of another man," you continued, your gentle smile disarming him completely. "You were made for me—by the gods.”

A low, defeated breath escaped his lips. He looked down at the letter from Daemon, then back to you, the dark flush of embarrassment creeping up his pale neck. He hated how easily you could unmake him. He hated that with a single smile, you could turn the feared Prince of the Greens into a foolish, paranoid boy.

"The gods have a twisted sense of humor, then," Aemond rasped, though his voice had lost its lethal edge, returning to that quiet, gravelly friction. He carefully shifted the squirming Corlys to one arm, using his free hand to reach out. His long, elegant fingers—still stained with the dark soil of the garden—pressed flat against your swelling stomach, feeling the faint, miraculous warmth through the fabric of your skirts.

"Daemon plays his games," he murmured, his eye narrowing slightly as he stared at the parchment in your hand, though the fury was gone, replaced by a deep, calculating wariness. "He dangles the heads of my enemies before me and calls it a family dinner. He knows what Luke took from me."

He leaned down, his nose brushing against yours, his breath hot and redolent of the morning air. The frost was still there in his posture, but his touch against your belly was fiercely gentle, possessive, and protective.

"I am a monster to them," Aemond whispered, his sapphire eye locked onto yours. "But if the gods made me for you, then I will be whatever creature keeps this house safe. Let Daemon whisper his jests across the sea. You are mine. This boy is mine. And the babe beneath your hand is mine."

He pulled back slightly, his chin tilting up with a trace of that stubborn Targaryen pride. "We are not going to Driftmark. If the Sea Snake wishes to see his namesake, he may sail here. But I will not sit at a table with the boy who stole my eye and pretend we are brothers."

"You don’t decide that husband—we go and you will be good," you countered, your voice a soft but unyielding tide. "No one is asking for peace just for a moment of—solitude."

Aemond let out a sharp, incredulous breath, a low sound that was half-scoff and half-groan. He looked at you as if you had truly lost your mind.

"Solitude?" he repeated, his voice dropping into a dangerous, frost-nipped whisper. "You want me to find solitude at a table with the Rogue Prince? You expect me to sit across from Lucerys Strong and politely ask him to pass the salt with the very hand that dug my eye from my skull?"

He stared at you, waiting for you to see the madness of your request. But your gentle smile didn't waver. It was the same smile that had tamed his fury in the gardens, the same smile that reminded him he was no longer a weapon to be pointed at a battlefield.

Slowly, the rigid tension in his shoulders began to bleed out, though he maintained his cold, brooding scowl. He looked down at your squirming son in his arms, then back to the unmistakable curve of your belly. You were entirely defenseless against the monsters of the world, yet you stood before him completely unafraid of the wolves across the sea—because you knew you brought the fiercest wolf with you.

"You are a tyrant," Aemond rasped, leaning down until his lips almost brushed yours, his breath hot and defensive. "A beautiful, merciless tyrant. My mother raised me to burn my enemies, and my wife commands me to sit at their table and 'be good.'"

“But you’ll be good, won’t you.” You smiled

His hand remained pressed firmly against your swelling stomach, his long fingers splayed protectively over the life growing inside you. He let out a defeated, resentful sigh, the last of his fiery protest dying in his throat.

"If a single one of them looks at you with malice—if Daemon so much as breathes a jest about our son's name—I am not answering for the consequences," he warned, his sapphire eye flashing with a cold, protective promise. "But I will go. For you. And for a moment of this... wretched solitude. I will sit at the table with Lucerys Strong.”

"Lucerys Velaryon," you corrected, your voice cool and steady as you held his gaze.

Aemond’s jaw clenched so hard a muscle jumped in his cheek. He let out a low, mocking hiss through his teeth. "He can call himself a Velaryon until the sea swallows the world, wife, but the mirror does not lie. Nor does the blood he spilled."

"The blood is in the past, Aemond," you said softly, taking a step closer so the curve of your belly pressed firmly against his hip. "The war has taken enough from everyone. Look at our son. Look at the life we are building here. Do you want him raised on stories of old debts and stolen eyes, or do you want him to know he has a family?"

Aemond looked down at the boy squirming in his grip, his sapphire eye softening for a fraction of a second before the frost hardened over it again. "A family? Daemon is a viper. My cousins are the brood of a usurper. If I walk into High Tide, I am walking into a cage."

"It is not a cage if my father holds the key," you countered, reaching up to lay your hand over his on your stomach. "Corlys would never allow harm to come to us. Not to his namesake, and not to the father of his grandchildren. Daemon knows this. This invitation... it is a test, yes, but it is also a concession. They are acknowledging you are alive, and they are offering a truce. For me. For the children."

Aemond remained silent for a long moment, his chest rising and falling in sharp, jagged breaths. He hated how logical you sounded. He hated that your words made sense even when every instinct in his Targaryen blood screamed at him to fly Vhagar to Driftmark and turn the castle to ash.

"A truce," he repeated, the word tasting like poison on his tongue. "And what happens when I look across the table and see the boy who maimed me? Am I to smile? Am I to toast to his health?"

"No," you said, a small, knowing smile touching your lips. "I expect you to be exactly who you are—proud, terrifying, and utterly untouchable. But you will be civil. You will show them that the Prince of Blood found something more valuable than a throne."

He stared at you, his pale face illuminated by the morning sun, his expression a complex battlefield of lingering resentment and profound, helpless devotion.

"You demand too much of me," he whispered, though his hand turned beneath yours, his fingers interlocking with your own over your swelling belly. "You ask a dragon to forget how to bite."

"I am asking my husband to protect his family," you murmured, tilting your chin up. "Can you do that?"

Aemond leaned down, his forehead resting against yours with a heavy, resigned sigh. "I would kill the world for you," he rasped against your skin, his voice thick with a dark, protective warmth. "Sitting at a table with bastards is a lesser torture, I suppose. But if Daemon pushes me, wife... I make no promises."

“Yeah?” You whispered with a giggled “No promises huh?”

He sighed looking away, “I’ll be good.”

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