notes. dear lord have mercy bcs i'll be the one stealing them from their wives rn
AERION.
The cold glass of the window pressed against your bare skin, a sharp contrast to the heat of Aerion’s body behind you. He held you firmly in place, his grip strong enough to leave bruises by morning — exactly what he wanted. He wanted the world to see that you were no longer the untouched, dutiful bride your betrothal demanded. You had already been ruined. Claimed. Profaned by him.
And he was going to make sure no one could ever take you away.
Goosebumps erupted across your skin as his warm hand slid down your stomach, pulling you harder against him. Your mind and body were at war — half of you desperate to push him away, the other half aching to surrender completely.
“Please… listen to me,” you begged, voice breaking. A choked moan escaped you as his fingers dipped between your thighs, finding you shamefully wet. Your hips arched back against his hand before you could stop yourself. “This isn’t right. I’m getting married soon, and—”
“Shh, shh,” Aerion hushed you, his voice low and dark. Two long fingers parted your slick folds and sank into you with agonizing slowness. “Why do you think I’m doing this now, silly girl?” He curled his fingers inside you, stroking that perfect spot. “If I wait even one more day, I’ll lose you…”
His words trailed off into a low groan as he focused entirely on the wet sound of his fingers pumping in and out of your cunt. He needed you. He always had. But time was running out, and desperation had turned him feral.
You pushed your ass back against the hard line of his cock, and the movement dragged him back to reality with a deep, hungry growl.
“…But if I make you mine tonight,” he rasped, “they won’t be able to tear you away from me.”
His fingers thrust deeper, curling deliciously, and suddenly you stopped caring that your breasts were crushed against the freezing glass. All you could focus on was him.
“What’s the point?” you gasped. “No one will ever know—”
His teeth sank into the side of your neck, a sharp warning that made you whimper. Still, you continued, breathless: “No one will know this ever happened.”
Aerion pulled his fingers out abruptly, leaving you clenching around nothing. You turned your head, only to meet his intense violet eyes burning into yours — dark and gleaming with a new, wicked idea.
“Oh, but they will know,” he murmured, voice velvet and venom. “I’ll make sure of it.”
His hands gripped your waist, positioning you exactly how he wanted. The thick head of his cock nudged against your soaked entrance for only a heartbeat before he drove into you in one brutal thrust, burying himself to the hilt.
A broken cry tore from your throat at the sudden stretch. You were grateful the window was closed — otherwise the entire garden would have heard you — but Aerion didn’t seem to care at all. He fucked you with purpose, deep and relentless, each stroke claiming you more thoroughly than the last.
“I’m going to put a baby in you tonight,” he growled against your ear, punctuating the vow with a particularly hard thrust that stole the breath from both of you. His sharp canines grazed the back of your neck as he smiled. “I’ll stay inside you all night if I have to. Do you hear me? Then you’ll be mine. Truly mine. And no one will dare take you from me.”
MAEKAR.
You weren’t sure how you’d ended up in this position, but after the heated argument about your impending departure and the arranged marriage, you now found yourself straddling Maekar’s lap in his favorite cushioned armchair.
He was still grumbling under his breath, but it was impossible to focus on his words when his thick cock was buried to the hilt inside you and his rough hands gripped your hips with bruising strength, refusing to let you move even an inch.
“And you did not think to tell me you are leaving at morrow,” he growled, the sound pulling you out of your lust-drunk haze. His dark eyes locked onto yours. “What was the lord’s name again?”
You shifted your hips slightly, desperate for friction, but he held you firmly in place. He was clearly determined to punish you. You were his. Had you still not realized it? Did he really need to take you like this — impaled on his cock, helpless in his lap — for it to finally sink into that pretty head of yours?
His fingers dug harder into your flesh, denying every desperate roll of your hips.
“You know what? It does not matter,” he rasped. “His name means nothing. His house means even less. He will not have you.” When your walls clenched tightly around his cock at his words, his voice dropped lower, rougher. “He will not have this.”
Encouraged by your reaction, you squeezed around his length again, trying to memorize the shape of him. Maekar finally gave in — just barely. He lifted his hips in a slow, controlled thrust, guiding you with those powerful hands in one long, torturous stroke.
“Maekar… it was already decided,” you tried to protest, breathy and weak. “The Septon—”
The old prince cut you off with a fierce kiss, his mouth claiming yours until you melted against him. Maybe it was affection. More likely, it was just another way to silence any argument or denial trying to leave your lips.
“Fuck the Septon and whatever vows he wants to spout,” Maekar growled against your mouth, nipping at your lower lip. “I will deal with him at morrow. I would sooner have you bear my name than see you wed to some lord in a forgotten keep.”
DAERON.
Your nightly tea lay forgotten on the bedside table, long gone cold beside the grand bed where you lay beneath Daeron.
He was trembling, skin slick with sweat, as he hovered over you. What had begun with him slipping into your chambers under weak excuses — that he only wanted to talk, to see you one last time before tomorrow — had quickly turned into desperate touches and broken pleas. He couldn’t bear to watch you leave. He couldn’t stand the thought of you belonging to another man.
“You’re mine,” he whispered shakily, bracing his arms on either side of your head so his weight wouldn’t crush you. “You’ve always been mine. Why didn’t you refuse?”
His cock was buried deep inside you, but despite how badly he wanted to make you feel good, his thrusts remained slow and shallow. Exhaustion and sorrow weighed heavily on him, yet his glassy violet eyes never left your face — intense, almost desperate.
“Refuse?” you answered softly, your gentler hands sliding along his ribs in a soothing caress. “Do you think I had any say in the matter? No one even knew you wanted to ask for my hand. Not even me.”
Daeron let out a pained groan at the truth of your words and dropped his forehead to the crook of your neck. His breathing was ragged — the only sign he hadn’t simply fallen asleep on top of you. After a long moment, he spoke again, voice barely above a whisper.
“But I knew,” he murmured. “And I did nothing. I never courted you. I never fought for you. Nothing.”
He pressed a soft, almost reverent kiss to your collarbone. After several agonizing seconds, his hips began to move again. It was almost pathetic how the only thing bringing him any satisfaction was the fact that he hadn’t come in the first four seconds, as heartbroken as he was. Embarrassing.
“I'm still here,” you whispered, rolling your hips up to meet his. He inhaled sharply, trying to steady himself. “It’s not too late, Daeron.”
He might finish embarrassingly fast. And he wasn’t going to pull out — whether you wanted it or not. He didn’t have that kind of control right now.
“Do you really think I still have a chance…?” he asked quietly, voice thick with emotion. “To make you stay with me.”
You nodded.
Daeron hated that the only thing of true value he possessed was his name. But if he had to use it — if he had to wield it like a weapon in this desperate moment — he would. For you. For both of you.
His body shuddered, balls tightening as his climax approached.
“Fuck… Alright then.” His voice cracked with raw need. “I’ll take care of it. As soon as I’ve finished with you.”
BAELOR.
The fire in the hearth had burned low, casting long shadows across your chambers, but neither of you cared. You were pressed against the edge of the large table, bent forward with Baelor behind you, his broad chest flush against your back. One of his strong hands covered yours on the wooden surface, fingers intertwined, while the other gripped your hip, holding you steady as he thrust into you with slow, deep strokes.
It had started with a quiet conversation that quickly turned desperate. You were to leave in one day. To marry. To be taken away from him. Baelor, ever the dutiful prince, had tried to accept it — until the thought of another man touching you became unbearable.
“You were meant for me,” he murmured against your ear, voice low and rough with restraint. His hips rolled forward, pushing his cock deeper into your soaked heat. “Not some lordling who knows nothing of your heart. Not some political pawn.”
A soft whimper escaped your lips as he hit that perfect spot inside you. Your walls fluttered around him, and Baelor groaned, pressing his forehead to the back of your neck.
“I tried to be honorable,” he continued, breath hot against your skin. “I told myself I would let you go if that was your duty. But I cannot.” His grip on your hip tightened, almost bruising. “I will not.”
He pulled back almost completely before sliding back in with one powerful thrust, drawing a broken moan from you. The table creaked beneath your bodies.
“Say it,” he whispered, voice thick with both love and command. “Tell me you are mine. Tell me you do not want to leave.”
You could barely form words, overwhelmed by the way he filled you, the way his body surrounded yours so completely. “Baelor… I—”
He kissed the side of your neck, then gently bit down, possessive in a way that contrasted with his usual chivalry. “I will speak with the king. With whoever I must.” Another deep thrust made your knees weak. “You will not be given to another. Not while I still draw breath.”
His pace quickened, no longer slow and measured but driven by weeks of suppressed longing. The sound of skin meeting skin filled the room, along with his low, ragged breaths.
“I will put my child in you tonight if that is what it takes,” he said, voice dropping into something darker, more desperate. “So the realm knows exactly who you belong to. So no one can ever take you from me again.”
He pulled your back flush against his chest, one arm wrapping around your waist as he drove into you harder. His lips brushed your temple, almost reverent even as his cock claimed you completely.
“You were always going to be my lady,” Baelor breathed, mismatched eyes burning with fierce determination. “And I will make it so.”
VALARR.
“You must stay with me,” Valarr murmured, his body covering yours as one of his hands gently parted your thighs again. “I’m yours, can’t you see that?”
The head of his cock, slick and glistening with the mess of your previous rounds, slid in and out of you with ease. You were both exhausted, covered in sweat and trembling with fatigue, yet a strange, desperate force kept driving him to fuck you again and again — as if he could rewrite fate with every deep thrust.
“It’s too much, Valarr—” you whimpered, your overstimulated pussy fluttering around his cock each time he pushed back inside.
He stilled for a moment, buried to the hilt, though he didn’t pull out. You could feel the warm, thick evidence of his earlier releases slowly leaking out of you, kept in place only by the thickness of his cock.
“You must not go with him,” he insisted softly, panting against your lips while holding your dazed gaze. “You’re mine. This is proof.” His heterochromatic eyes searched yours. “Because that lord has not touched you, has he?”
You nodded, and a small, relieved smile brightened his face for a brief moment.
“Then it’s decided,” he whispered with quiet reverence. “You’ll stay with me. You will be my wife, and I will be your husband… because that’s what we were always meant to be.”
His mismatched eyes traced every inch of your face with pure adoration. “Gods, you’re so beautiful. I should have told you that moons ago.”
You smiled up at him, your fingers threading gently through the pale strands of his brown hair over his ears. “How improper of you,” you teased softly, “stealing me away from my future husband.”
Valarr hid a small smile against the curve of your neck, pressing tender kisses to your flushed skin — almost apologetic for how roughly his desperation had taken you. You had to be sore and exhausted by now.
“Husband?” He kissed your neck again, slow and sweet. “I am your husband.” Another kiss. “Or I will be, if you’ll have me. Because the ship waiting in the harbor won’t be sailing with you on board. I swear it.”
Summary: How do (some of) the men in akotsk sleep?
Tags: Baelor, Maekar, Valarr, Aerion, Daeron, Dunk, plus an extra Egg in there, f!reader, fluff, mentions of alcohol, very light mentions of smut (I dropped an f bomb in there)
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Woke up from such a good nap, which got me thinking, how are these guys sleeping? So here you go. Halfway through thought how would their modern version sleep as well, so you have a two-in-one special today. Realized I'm bad at formatting, gave up tbh. Also bad at tagging. Also, grammar? What grammar? English is my second language.
Disclaimer: This is a work of fanfiction, with no commercial purposes. All the characters and settings of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms do not belong to me. You are responsible for the media you consume.
Duncan the Tall
Years on the road made him adaptable, can (and will) fall asleep anywhere. He is huge, so any position he falls asleep in is immediately classified as sprawling. If he is fortunate enough to have a bed, it's as simple as it gets. A blanket and a small pillow are more than enough, given that he is used to sleeping on the ground under the stars (which he actually prefers). Sleeps deeply from the general physical exhaustion that comes with travelling, but unfamiliar noises can wake him. If you are travelling with him, he would try to find inns for you to sleep in, but you would always persuade him to sleep outside. You love it best when you are tucked underneath him, and he is both a shield and a blanket to you. His arm? Best pillow ever.
modern Duncan sleeps on some raggedy couch he found someone giving away on facebook marketplace, and he is genuinely fine with how he either crams to fit or lets his feet dangle off the armrest. after the two of you move in together, your largest expense is a proper super king-sized bed, and this guy is sleeping like a log, and his entire body fits for the first time ever. hogs all the blankets. sleeps in pajama bottoms only, no matter the weather. likes having the window open.
Aerion Targaryen
They invented the word lavish for this man. Silk sheets, embroidered pillows, expensive furs, softest blankets. Everything about him must reflect his status. Crazy enough to demand that his bedding be changed daily. A ton of pillows on the bed. His sleeping habits? Depends on his mood. If he is unprovoked, he sleeps like a baby, on his back, cocooned among his pillows. If, however, he is brooding and psychotic, he stays awake for three days straight, generally growing more and more unstable, throws everything on his bed all over the room, and then crashes on the floor for 19 hours. Twitches in his sleep. With you, his favourite position is lying on his stomach, his head on your belly, as you lightly scratch his head, his arms, his back. Purrs like a kitten dragon.
modern Aerion is the type of guy who, if he's sleeping at someone's place, demands their room and then criticizes everything about it. blood-red silk pajamas, embroidered with his name. still demands bedding to be changed daily just because he can, until he moves in with you, and you make him change the bedding for the first time in his life; then he sees what a hassle that is, so you are back to a normal bedding-changing schedule. bedroom littered with expensive scented candles. room temperature is a furnace. childhood bed couldn't be seen from the mountain of dragon plushies he had on, and would force Maekar to say goodnight to each and every one of them every night when he would tuck him in (no papa, that one is Vhagar, Balerion is the black one, now apologize to them, papa).
Daeron Targaryen
Poor baby Daeron. Sleeps wherever he collapses after drinking - curled on one side, face-down, or tangled in blankets. Maekar finds him and carries him to bed. Wakes up in the night, disoriented. Bed is meant to be luxurious, but frequently left messy. Half-empty wine cups, discarded clothing, books and papers scattered everywhere. Sweats and twitches in his sleep. Also, if he's drunk, he snores. If his dreams are plaguing him, screams and cries in his sleep. Positions alternate from face-down spread like a star to curled up like a fetus. With you, though, as he is trying to stay away from the bottle, favourite position is being the little spoon: safe in your embrace, falls asleep enveloped by your scent, as you sing lullabies to him.
modern Daeron sleeps in his day clothes as he just plops on the bed, or pajamas that haven't been washed in weeks. his bed is actually just a mattress on the floor. owns 2 bedsheets, both have holes in them. sleeps fitfully, wakes often, gets at most 4 hours of sleep at night. you refuse to sleep at his place, so he finally goes out and buys a proper bed, but the task of changing the sheets is all on you. you buy him a star projector nighlight and a white noise machine, and they help calm him and fall into a deep sleep, and he actually gets a good 6 hours now. still loves being the little spoon. sleptwalk as a child. Maekar removed all the window handles and had all the doors locked, and would always return him to bed (because every noise wakes that man up). talks in his sleep. naps often.
Valarr Targaryen
Side sleeper through and through, prefers the left. Generally gets a good night's sleep, sometimes is a bit tense from all the expectations put on him as Baelor's heir. Elegant bed, but not excessive, still has the blanket (or remnants of it) his mother made while pregnant with him. Two pillows for sleeping and one decorative that he places on the side chair when he goes to sleep. Dislikes furs. When his face scrunches, you always soothe the wrinkles between his forehead with the pad of your finger, or a light kiss, and he relaxes immediately. Not much tossing or turning, maybe he switches the side he sleeps on. Lightly drools when fully relaxed (or he had a few drinks before bed). Goes to sleep and wakes at the same hours every day.
modern Valarr prides himself on how neat he makes his bed. Baelor taught him when he was a kid, and he has kept that habit. his pet peeve of yours is that you don't make the bed good enough, so you compromised: he does the bed, you water the plants. forbids food and drinks in bed. his nightstand has a lamp, a glass of water, his glasses, and a book he reads for twenty minutes before sleeping. likes a colder room, rotates the pillow to the colder side. owns a weighted blanket.
Maekar Targaryen
Sleeps ramrod straight, on his back. Almost doesn't move. Breathes quietly. Years of military campaigns mean he's accustomed to waking at the slightest unusual sound, the sort of person to be fully awake in seconds if disturbed. His bed does not reflect his royal status: firm mattress, plain wool blankets, one measly pillow, with a dagger under it, one hand on its hilt. Never shows softness consciously, and it is obvious even when he sleeps, with tense jaw, furrowed brows, shoulders never fully relaxed. With you, though, things change completely. His bed is now adorned with pillows, blankets, and furs. Weapons are banned. Maekar scoffs and growls, but doesn't say anything. The truth is, he is getting the best sleep of his life with you in his arms. One arm always draped possessively over your stomach, nose burrowed in your neck, legs tangled, as if he's trying to mold the two of you together. His whole body is relaxed, and he even snores lightly. If he ever has to sleep without you, he sprays some of the oils you put in your hair on the pillow so it smells like you, and just burrows his face in it for the night. You love to run your fingers through his hair and beard before bed, because you can see how touch starved that man is, and how the tension leaves him as you continue caressing him.
modern Maekar puts all his kids to bed and reads them bedtime stories. still a light sleeper. groans as he gets in bed. mastered the whole military 'two-minutes-to-fall-asleep' technique. Maekar Targaryen sleeps naked, send tweet. does have a nightrobe though. has blackout curtains. room furniture is expensive, but minimalistic. until you bring all your tchatchkis. personally offended by your childhood plushie you bring over (gets flashback to Aerion's childhood). refuses to fuck you if that thing is on the bed (you stuff it in the nightstand). if you move apart during the night, pulls you back to him. growls when you get up before him; can't really sleep after you leave. does not understand the purpose of decorative pillows. no TVs, phones, or computers allowed in the bedroom.
Baelor Targaryen
Goes to bed after everyone else, rises before the sun. Sleeps enough to remain sharp; the realm needs him, so he cannot indulge himself in the luxury of sleep. He falls asleep not because he's tired, but because he decides to. Large bed, with fine linens and practical blankets, keeps everything tidy. Does like a firmer pillow. Sleeps on his back, but almost like he is moving to lie on his side, arms folded on his torso. Even though he works himself to the bone, he has a rule to not bring any scrolls, papers, or correspondence to his bedroom. Murmurs in his sleep, his brain never not working. Snores softly, like a quiet rumble when he's deeply exhausted. With you, though, he is much more relaxed. Tries to go to bed at a reasonable time, because he loves the late-night conversations between the two of you. He lies on his back, and you're curled to his side, your head pressed to his chest, listening to his heartbeat. Legs tangled, one of his hands combing gently through your hair as you play with the fingers and trace patterns on the palm of his other hand. Hates leaving you in the morning. Always dropping forehead kisses when he has you in his arms. When Valarr and Matarys were younger, he would always allow them to sleep in his bed if they asked.
modern Baelor does not go to bed without a cup of tea, with honey (never sugar) and a splash of milk. aerates the room before bed. sleeps in proper pajamas, goes feral when he sees you sleeping in one of his shirts. always kicks one leg out from under the covers. you practically sleep on top of him, and your hair always ends up in his face. he's used to it by now. doesn't move much, heartbeat slow, breath steady, naturally warm. sleeps soundly, but wakes instantly if you whisper his name. does not need an alarm to wake up, instinctively reaches to your side of the bed. owns the softest blankets and pillows known to man. if you fall asleep on the couch, he always carries you to bed. forehead kisses, even when he's half-asleep. loves to sleep when it rains, finds storms oddly comforting.
bonus: Aegon Targaryen
In every single universe that kid takes up all the space in bed, spread like a star. Maekar has received several kicks to his jaw when he allowed Aegon in bed (he tries to be brave after a nightmare, but always runs to his father. Maekar grunts, but always relents). Snores and talks in his sleep. If awoken by a nightmare, loves to snuggle to calm down.
A/N: thoughts and comments always appreciated. My first time ever writing for multiple people at once, lemme know what you think. Also, drop ideas for more fics pretty please! x
The hatred between your uncle and the Targaryens becomes blurred
smut, age gap, pregnancy kink (3.0k)
The air in the chamber smelled of damp stone and old sulfur, that scent that clung to your throat every time a dragon breathed nearby. Two days had passed since you arrived at Tumbleton, two days of narrow corridors and lowered voices, of feeling like every Hightower you crossed paths with was measuring you with their eyes, as if searching your face for something to confirm or something to condemn. You didn't care. You hated them all, even though your own blood carried that name through your mother. You were a Targaryen. Nothing more.
That morning you went down with Daeron to the space they'd improvised for the dragons, a chamber dug underground, too small, too dark for creatures born for the open sky. You felt Blackhunt's restlessness before you even saw her, a tremor that climbed up through your bones, a tension the two of you had shared ever since they'd been locked in there. The dragon scraped her claws against the stone, made the air crack with a low growl every time the ceiling seemed too close to her folded wings.
Daeron stood in front of his own dragon, speaking to her in whispers.
"We'll be flying again soon," he told her, running a hand along her warm scales. "Have patience."
You stayed a step behind, your hand resting on Blackhunt's flank, feeling the heat of her body pass through your palm. She didn't bear the confinement well either, neither of you did.
That was when the door opened and your uncle's figure filled the stone doorway.
"I warned you," Ormund said, looking at Daeron with that voice he used for everything, half reproach, half sermon. "I told you not to grow fond of the beast."
"She's not a beast," you said, before you'd even thought it through, your voice cutting through the silence of the chamber. "And she has a name."
Ormund barely looked at you, as if your presence were background noise he could ignore.
"Stay out of this."
"You don't give me orders," you answered, taking a step toward him, feeling your blood pulse hot behind your eyes. "I'm a princess, I could burn you if I wanted to."
He didn't answer. He turned to Daeron with a brief smile, almost tender, the only tenderness you'd seen from him since you'd arrived.
"At least you're a good boy," he said, placing a hand on Daeron's shoulder. "Gentle. You say your prayers. The light of the Seven shines on you, the Father favors you."
"As if the Seven existed," you said, contempt rising up your throat.
Ormund looked at you then, finally, with something close to disdain.
"Both of you carry tainted blood," he said, slowly, as if savoring each word. "The Targaryens are a wild line. Of little intellect, but great cunning. With dark spells that created abominations to seize what belonged to others. We are superior."
You felt Blackhunt's growl before you heard it, a low roar that rose through the dragon's chest, her nostrils flaring, fire pulsing somewhere behind her ribs. She knew.
"Calm the beast," Ormund said, without taking his eyes off you.
You didn't. You let Blackhunt growl a second longer before resting your hand on her neck, a gesture that was more a warning to your uncle than comfort for the dragon.
"The gods have assigned you a divine purpose," he said then to Daeron, ignoring you completely, as if he were already done with you. "A purpose only you can fulfill."
"What is it, my lord?" Daeron asked, in that voice that hadn't quite finished becoming a man's, unsure, almost childlike.
"They put a woman on the throne," Ormund said. "And you've lost your brothers, that leads to only one path. Now you must be king."
You watched Daeron go pale, watched the weight of those words come crashing down on him like a slab of stone.
"You're not asking me to turn against my siblings," he said, almost in a whisper.
You stepped forward before Ormund could answer.
"What he's doing is treason," you said, driving each word in like a knife. "Aemond is next in line for the throne, and I, in turn, am the queen. My mother didn't promise me to him for nothing."
"Those are matters of the past," Ormund replied, unruffled, as if your anger were barely a breeze. "Daeron will restore the old order. He'll begin a new world."
He gestured toward the door, and two guardsmen came in dragging a soldier who resisted, his hands bound and his face already swollen from earlier blows.
"A good king must show that he treasures many virtues," Ormund said, with the calm of someone reciting something learned long ago. "Honor. Wisdom. Justice…"
"He defended a woman who was attacked!" Daeron exclaimed, his voice breaking between indignation and fear.
"He laid a hand on a Hightower," Ormund answered, unyielding. "That soldier is an extension of you. Of the Crown. Justice must be done."
"Isn't mercy also a virtue, my lord?" Daeron asked, and this time his voice trembled entirely, his eyes searching for something in his uncle's face that was no longer there.
"That's what your father would have said."
Daeron took a step back as his uncle suddenly closed the distance.
"Forgive me," he murmured.
That was when you approached, slowly, unhurried, letting your footsteps echo against the stone. You took his face in your hands with a care you reserved only for him, for that brother who was barely two years younger but whom you protected as if he were made of glass.
"You always dreamed of being free, like a Targaryen," you told him, quietly, only for him, though you knew Ormund heard every word. "This is the moment to begin. Do justice the way we do it. Feed that man to Tessarion, a true Targaryen never trembles, take what's his by fire, start with him."
You held his gaze a moment longer, searching for that spark you knew was there, buried under fear, and then you stepped back, went to stand beside your uncle, your spine straight and your chin raised.
Ormund approached Daeron and drew his sword, offering it to him with both hands, like a relic.
"I risked everything to raise you," he said. "You won't want to disappoint me."
Daeron took the sword. He sought your eyes one last time, and you nodded, just barely, a minimal gesture that was all the answer he needed.
The man begged for mercy. The word broke in his throat as Daeron ran him through.
Ormund stepped forward to take the sword from his hands, then bowed, and you did the same, never taking your eyes off your brother, then you walked over to him, ignoring the body still bleeding out on the stone, and rested a hand on his shoulder.
"You did well," you told him.
Behind you, Tessarion released a brief burst of flame, a roar of fire that wrapped around the body and filled the chamber with sudden heat, with the sickly sweet, horrible smell of burning flesh. The dragon approached afterward, slowly, to feed.
You left the chamber without looking back, leaving Daeron with the sword still trembling in his hand and the smell of burnt flesh clinging to his clothes. Every step you took through the corridors made your blood boil a little more, until you reached your uncle's chambers and found the door ajar.
You walked in as if the place belonged to you, and in a way you felt it did, that everything Ormund believed he possessed in there belonged to you too, even if only so you could tear it from his hands.
"I won't let you take away my right to be queen," you said, without preamble, your voice cutting through the silence of the room.
Ormund didn't even flinch. He stood by the window, and looked at you with that exasperating calm he used for everything, as if your fury were nothing more than a child's tantrum.
"As I already said," he answered, without looking away from you, "those are matters of the past. Daeron will be the new king, and I'll find him a worthy wife, a submissive one."
"I won't let you do that," you said, taking a step toward him.
"It's not your decision to make."
"No," you agreed, and took another step, and another, until you stood a hand's breadth from him, close enough to see his jaw tighten. "It's mine. If I have to, I'll marry him. I'll have as many children as I can, uncle. To be queen, to extend the Targaryen blood you hate so much."
Something crossed Ormund's face then, something that wasn't quite surprise nor quite disdain, but an uncomfortable mix of both.
"You won't do any such thing," he said, his voice lower, more tense. "I'll lock you up if I have to, you won't marry him."
"I could have children all the same," you answered, not retreating a single inch, holding his gaze like a challenge. "Daeron could give me bastards, and I'd make sure the Hightowers were erased from history, if that's what it takes. No one is going to stand above me."
Ormund let out a low, dry laugh, almost a growl. The sound reverberated in the stone room, closer than it should have been. You were pressed so tightly against him that you could feel the heat of his chest, the scent of incense and old leather that always accompanied him, and something darker underneath: the sweat of a man who had just manipulated his nephew into killing.
“Bastards?” he repeated, tilting his head toward you. His voice dropped an octave, hoarse. “Do you really think I’m going to allow my nephew, my Daeron, to sully his lineage? To let your dragon-swollen womb produce more monsters with violet eyes and silver hair?”
You took another step forward, your chest brushing against his, and neither of you pulled back. The air between you grew thick, charged with fury and something neither wanted to name yet. You felt your breathing quicken, the heat rising up your neck.
“Disgust?” you whispered, almost against his mouth. “I doubt you want to mix your precious Hightower blood with mine, uncle. It would make you nauseous, wouldn’t it? Imagining me naked beneath you, legs spread, receiving your seed. Imagining my womb growing with something of yours inside. Everything that comes from me repulses you, doesn’t it? My body, my blood, my children… everything that carries the seal of the dragon.”
Ormund stared at you fixedly. His eyes, normally cold and calculating, now burned with something wild. His hand suddenly rose and gripped your wrist tightly, not to push you away, but to keep you there, pressed against him. You could feel his pulse beating fast beneath his skin, his hot breath against your cheek.
“Don’t provoke me,” he said through gritted teeth. His other hand rose to your jaw, holding it firmly, forcing you to maintain eye contact. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”
You felt his body tense against yours. The fabric of his tunic brushed against your dress, and beneath that… the unmistakable hardness of his arousal pressing against your hip. It wasn’t just rage. It was desire, raw, forbidden, disgusting to himself, and that only infuriated him more.
“You think you’re so superior,” he continued, his voice hoarse, almost a dangerous whisper. “With your dragon, your Valyrian blood, your damn pride. But look at yourself now… trembling against me, with your nipples hard under that dress. Are you so desperate for power that you’d spread your legs for the man who wants to take your throne?”
You smiled, slow and dangerous, and pushed your hips forward, deliberately rubbing against him. The gasp that escaped his throat gave you more pleasure than any victory.
“Maybe I am,” you replied, lowering your voice until it was only a purr. “Or maybe I just want to see how much you hate yourself when you take me. Because you will, uncle. You’ll hate every second you’re inside me… and you’ll want more.”
His hand on your jaw tightened harder, almost painfully. For a moment you thought he was going to kiss you, or hit you, or both. The silence was deafening, broken only by your ragged breathing.
Then, with visible effort, he pushed you back, but not enough to let you go completely. His eyes dropped for a second to your lips, betraying him.
“Get out of here,” he growled. “Before I do something neither of us can undo.”
But you didn’t leave, and he didn’t let you go either.
Your pulse throbbed between your legs, hot and treacherous. You didn’t pull back. Instead, you lifted your chin and brushed your lips against his, barely a touch, a provocation.
“I’m not leaving,” you whispered against his mouth.
That was all he needed.
With a guttural growl, Ormund pushed you against the oak table behind you. The impact was sharp, but it didn’t hurt; it only fueled the fire. His mouth crashed down on yours with fury, kissing you as if he wanted to punish and devour you at the same time.
His lips were hard, demanding, and his tongue invaded your mouth without asking permission. He tasted of wine and contained rage. You responded with equal intensity, biting his lower lip while your hands rose to his chest, tugging at the laces of his tunic.
“I hate you,” he growled against your neck, biting the sensitive skin just below your ear. His hands slid down your sides, gripping your hips hard, pressing you against his hard, hot erection straining beneath the fabric.
“And I despise you,” you replied, panting, as you slid a hand between your bodies and stroked him over his clothes. You felt him throb under your palm. “But that doesn’t change what I want right now.”
Ormund let out a hoarse sound and lifted your dress with brusque movements, pushing it up to your waist. His fingers found your bare skin, sliding up your thighs until they reached your already wet center. When he touched you there, sliding two fingers between your slick folds, you both moaned at the same time.
“So wet…” he murmured against your throat, almost in disbelief. “For me.”
You didn’t give him the satisfaction of a coherent response. You only arched your hips against his hand, seeking more friction. He slid one finger inside you, then two, moving them with a precision that made you clench your teeth to keep from screaming. His thumb found your swollen clit and rubbed it in slow, firm circles, bringing you to the edge with an ease that infuriated and aroused you in equal measure.
You pulled the dress over your head with trembling hands and threw it to the floor. You stood naked before him, save for the gold chain hanging between your breasts. Ormund paused for a second, looking at you with raw hunger: your hardened nipples, the curve of your waist.
He removed his tunic in a single movement, revealing a torso marked by old scars and tense muscles. His body was imposing, broader and stronger than you had imagined.
You pulled him toward you again, kissing him violently while untying his pants. His cock sprang free, thick and heavy, the head already glistening with precum.
You wrapped your hand around it, stroking him up and down with firm movements. Ormund let out a choked gasp and lifted you, sitting you on the edge of the table.
He spread your legs with his hands and positioned himself between them.
“Look at me,” he ordered.
You did. His eyes locked onto yours as he guided his erection to your entrance and thrust into you in one deep movement. The stretch was intense, almost painful at first, but pleasure followed immediately. You both moaned. He was big, hot, filling you completely.
He began to move with strong, controlled thrusts, each one deeper than the last. The table creaked beneath you. You clung to his shoulders, digging your nails into his back as he fucked you with a mix of hatred and lust that made you feel powerful. Every time he bottomed out, he brushed that spot inside you that made you see stars.
“Tell me you want it,” he growled, biting your shoulder. “Tell me you want me to fill you.”
“I want it,” you gasped, wrapping your legs around his waist so he could go deeper. “Please…
He picked up the pace, his hips slamming against yours with force. The wet sound of flesh against flesh filled the room along with your moans.
He kissed you again, more savagely, while one of his hands moved down to rub your clit in time with his thrusts. The orgasm hit you suddenly, intense and overwhelming.
You clenched around him, screaming his name against his mouth as waves of pleasure coursed through your body.
Ormund didn’t last much longer. With one final hoarse growl, he sank to the hilt and came inside you, spilling his hot seed in deep pulses. He stayed there, buried inside you, breathing heavily against your neck.
For a long moment, only your breathing could be heard. Then, slowly, he lifted his head and looked at you. There was no longer only fury in his eyes. There was something darker, more possessive.
“You’re not going to marry Daeron,” he said quietly, still inside you, his hand slowly caressing your belly. “Nor are you going to bear anyone’s bastards. If anyone is going to swell this womb… it’s going to be me.”
You felt a shiver that had nothing to do with fear. A part of you, the wildest and most Targaryen, ignited at the image: your body changing because of him, carrying his children, uniting the two bloodlines into something new and powerful.
“Then take me as your wife,” you whispered, running your fingers through his sweat-dampened hair. “Make me truly yours, uncle. I want your children. I want my womb to carry your legacy…”
He closed his eyes for a second, as if your words hit him harder than any sword. When he opened them, there was a fierce determination in his gaze.
“You will be my wife,” he murmured against your lips, sealing the promise with a slow, deep kiss, still joined to you. “And you will give me dragons with a Hightower crown.”
contents: witchy!reader part 2, mother figure!reader, protective!ormund, angst (hurt/comfort), mutual pining, mutual obsession, talks of religion, not proofread soz, cw for smut 18+ (MDNI): unprotected sex, some choking, dom!ormund but also kinda sub!ormund
( NAVIGATION ) | ( MASTERLIST ) | ( AO3 )
Your hand moves slowly through the silken water of the bath, stirring at the flecks of dried chamomile drifting along its surface. The earthy, medicinal aroma of the flowers melts with the sweet orange oil you’d sprinkled in, a concoction known for its soothing properties. Ormund has yet to feel any hint of that promised relaxation, though.
His strong chest, flushed red from the curls of steam, heaves over the waterline. His fingers tighten over the copper rim every time the ripples of your fingers find the most sensitive part of him. It would be so easy, his mind races, for you to reach lower and close your fist around him — to bring him pleasure with nothing but your fingers wrapped around him.
But you had never given him anything so freely, not without first making him earn the ache of waiting for it. So he keeps his gaze on the bath tray above his knees and refuses to let his eyes wander to your hand.
“Is it to your liking, my lord?” you ask from where you kneel at the tub’s edge, with a hint of a knowing smile tugging faintly at your lips.
Ormund nods until the words to respond catch up to him. “Yes, my lady— Thank you,” he stammers, flustered with a heat he’d sooner blame on the bath.
His pale eyes follow the line of your throat until it disappears into the collar of your gown, dipping low enough for him to see the shadow of your breasts just before you rise to full height above him. You hold the draping sleeve with your free hand and shake your other free from the warm water clinging to your skin.
“Lay out my tiles for me, will you?”
Daeron smiles from his spot on the cushioned chaise by the hearth. The rays of morning light streaming in through the narrow windows catch in his auburn hair, turning them to flames of orange. “As long as you promise not to cheat this time,” the boy jokes drily, already sorting the carved bone tiles on the low table just ahead of him.
“Winning is not cheating, little prince,” you quip with an arched brow, crossing the distance to join him by the fire. “There is a difference—”
“And you’d do well not to accuse the lady of cheating again,” Ormund cuts in without glancing up from his parchment and quill. “It isn’t polite.”
“Yes, uncle,” Daeron nods once with the smile long gone from his face, suddenly as solemn as a septon.
You glance at Ormund over your shoulder, eyes sparkling with amusement. “It was only in jest, my lord. The little prince meant no harm, I’m sure—”
A sharp knock sounds at the door before you’ve settled by the hearth; three sharp raps in a brisk and dutiful rhythm. “Come,” Ormund calls out, still half-lost in his correspondences. The old oak door groans open a second later. A steward announces from the doorway: “My Lord. Lord and Lady Footly, requesting audience.”
Ormund’s jaw grinds with a preemptive annoyance, though he sets his letters aside on the bathing tray as the lords of Tumbleton enter — Lord Footly first, narrow-shouldered and twitching with the particular anxiety of a man about to recite a complaint his wife had sent him in to tell. Lady Footly comes a pace behind, spine straighter than a spear-shaft beneath her heavy yellow dress. She sneers when her eyes find yours, narrow features twisting at the sight of you in her home, which by any right or blood should never be yours.
“My lord,” Lord Footly begins, voice thinner than paper as he wrings his hands together. Sweat beads on his long forehead, rolling down from his woolen chaperon. “We come regarding our lodging situation. Your men have taken the hall, the granary, all but one of our guest chambers—”
“Yes,” Ormund huffs with a slow nod, growing quickly weary in his patience. “I’ve heard that you are unhappy with your lodging.”
“’Tis only that we are very fond of our ancestral home—”
“You are sleeping in our bedchamber,” Lady Footly interjects, far harsher than her husband by a mile. Her gaze cuts towards you then, like a drawn sword. “And your priestess— or whatever lie you’ve taken to calling her— has filled my mother’s chambers with her… things. Her vials, her herbs, her— poisons. And I will not have my family sleep beneath the same roof as some witch.”
Her words suck all the air out of the room, or seem to, rather. The humidity rising from the scalding bath feels borderline suffocating in an instant. The sounds of trickling water fill the heavy silence as Ormund rises from the bath without a word.
Silken rivulets cascade down his muscular form — from his broad shoulders, to his chest, and down his lean stomach — where a line of coarse brunette hair leads to his cock, hanging heavy and limp at his left thigh.
He stands in the center of the tub, dripping and undressed, too angry to care about his own modesty. Lord and Lady Footly fight to avert their gazes without appearing weak.
“That… witch,” Ormund spits through a clenched jaw, as if the word itself were some grave insult. “Is not a guest in this house you are simply meant to tolerate, my lady.”
Water pools on the cold cobblestone at his bare feet when he steps out of the tub, unbothered by his own nakedness, and refusing to look away from either of them.
“She is under my protection, as I am under hers— and there is no line I can find between an insult to her and an insult to me. And I would remind you both that I have executed men for lesser treasons than what’s just uttered in this room,” he continues in a low, melodic voice, reaching for the towel hanging beside the tub and smoothing the rough nettles over his glistening skin. “So consider it a mercy that I choose to remember that you are only frightened, and not that you are traitors— That’s why you bent the knee to Rhaenyra, was it not? Because you were scared?”
The silence that follows feels like a thing with teeth, gnawing desperately at the ankles.
“My lord, we meant no—”
“I understand the situation is… less than ideal. For us all, no doubt,” Ormund interjects, though a lighter air has returned to him now. “I assure you that I will keep my men on their best behavior… So long as you remain on yours.” He goes cold again, dismissive in an instant. “See them back to their new chambers, will you, nephew?”
Dareon rises at once, dutiful and only slightly fearful. He escorts them back to their rooms despite the quiet “don’t” that Lady Footly spits at the young prince when he attempts to lead her by the arm. The woman does not glance at you again on her way out, which you see as its own kind of quiet concession.
Your slippers pad along the cobbles as you walk back towards the bath. You pluck the robe from its hook and drape the silken, emerald fabric over Ormund’s broad shoulders, walking in front of him to draw it closed over his chest. His eyes follow your hands the whole while. His chest heaves the remnants of his rage.
He clears his throat, words softer now, “I apologize, my lady—”
“Have you done something, my lord?”
“She shouldn’t have spoken that way— not of you, not ever,” he stammers. His Adam’s apple bobs in his long throat as he swallows. His fingers twitch anxiously at his side. “Perhaps I ought to punish her. Cut her tongue from her mouth and then geld her husband for allowing his wife to say such things.”
“You were gracious to them, Ormund, as you have always been,” you coo with a tender smile, smoothing the robe flat over his damp collarbone. You think you can feel the thunder of his racing pulse beneath your palm; the heartbeat of a warhorse after a charge. “You said it yourself— they are only frightened. Most people are, of the things they do not understand. It costs her nothing to sneer at me from her doorway. But it will cost her a great deal more to watch the prophecy prove itself true, and to know that she mocked it to my face.”
He eases a little at that, broad shoulders loosening beneath his robe. His breath catches a moment later when your hands dip between your bodies to tie the waist of his robe. His chest tightens, strangled by a heat he can feel crawling up his neck and into his jaw when he feels his cock twitching — with all the helplessness of a teenage boy only just learning the touch of a woman, utterly reeling by the proximity of your hands alone.
You glance down at his lap, and then back up at him, mouth curling with a poorly concealed amusement. “Shall I have some cubes from the icehouse sent up for your bath, my lord?” you wonder with a feigned sincerity. “For your… situation?”
Ormund glows as red as the flame of the Oldtown hightower. “…No,” he chokes out before clearing his throat. “No, my lady. I— I believe I'll manage.”
The solar, which had once belonged to Lady Footly’s mother, now smells of crushed anise and tea leaves — of willow bark, tallow, and smoky embers from a crackling fire. Jars and vials line the shelves where needlework once sat; the glass catches the low firelight in shades of crimson, emerald green, and ocean blue. A pestle sits half-buried in scarlet powder on the worktable, and just beside it, a small iron pot bubbles over burning coals. The steam climbs in slow silver ribbons towards the rafters.
You flit between the two — pot and pestle, stirring and milling — with an ease that suggests you’ve done this a thousand times before, and would likely do it a thousand times again. A knock comes at the door as you crush a handful of spice into the boiling water. The sound is much too gentle to belong to a knight’s hand.
“Come in, Prince Daeron,” you call into the quiet.
The door eases open a moment later. The boy slips in with his head bowed, half in respect and half in his own innate shyness. “How did you know it was me?” he wonders aloud, brows lowered in a boyish look of confusion.
“Well, that is sort of my specialty, is it not?” you hum with a smile and a lazy shrug. “I make potions, and I know things.”
“Is that what you’re making now?” the boy asks, nodding his head to the boiling pot you stand in front of. “Potions?”
“This— is only tea.” You scoop your pointer finger into the simmering liquid without flinching, testing the bittersweetness on your tongue. “It’s ginger and willow bark. For the peasant’s wife whose arm was broken by Ser Garrick. It’s meant to help with the pain. But this…” You trail off and walk to the opposite end of the worktable for the bowl and pestle. You grind the scarlet bits into a finer powder with a few expert turns of your wrist. “This is for the Lady Kat. The woman he attacked. Or tried to.”
“…Is she a lady?” Daeron presses and inches further.
“Well, her husband is a dragonrider for Rhaenyra, so she might as well be,” you sigh, swiping your palms together to rid them of the last of the powder. “He’s surely a knight now, no doubt— or a slave, depending on how you look at it…”
Daeron leans over the other side of the table, peering down into the bowl of foreign grains with a childlike curiosity.
“Best not to get too close, little prince,” you tell him, firm but not unkind. “This could knock even the strongest of knights on his back, should he breathe too deeply of it. I'll have it bagged and sent to Lady Kat at once— so she need never fear another Ser Garrick crossing her threshold again."
Daeron nods slowly to himself in admiration. He knew long before Tumbleton that you were both the strangest and kindest person he’d ever met. His uncle was kind, too, in his own way — but he had a temper that could change quickly and with very little warning. You were gentler than that, strong without having to raise your voice to proclaim it. The kind of gentle that makes tea and poison to protect peasant women you’d never met before, as if it were something you took to by instinct alone.
You notice a pensive sort of look etching in his rounded features before he’s said another word. “Is something troubling you, little prince?” you ask him, wiping your hands off on a cloth as you round the table towards him.
“I watched,” Daeron starts quietly, emerald eyes dropping to the cobbles. “Ser Garrick’s punishment, I mean— my uncle had him gelded for what he did, and he wanted me there for it. I didn’t want to watch it but… I couldn’t look away, in the end.”
“Well, that’s only natural,” you assure him. The casual air in your voice eases the furrow from his brow. “Not being able to look away, I mean. Morbid curiosity is stitched into all of us— witnessing that sort of harm is often the only way we can safely face our own fears. Of death, or injury, or misfortune… You're not bad for watching it, Daeron. You're only human."
“What if I couldn’t do the same? If I were in my uncle’s place?” he presses then, voice smaller now. “Would that make me bad?”
He says the words as if they’d been sitting on his tongue for some time — words he would not dare ask his uncle, whose love for him was absolute, but came with an edge even still. There are no edges to measure with you, he finds, so he speaks freely when the two of you are alone accordingly. You know this, too; so you take the boy’s round face in your palms and tilt it gently upwards.
“You could do the same,” you tell him, with a mother’s firm warmth, though you were not one yourself. “Not the gelding, perhaps, but the choosing. Because you are good, little prince— and sometimes goodness means refusing to let cruelty go unpunished. The gods do not ask us to enjoy it; only to be capable of it, when the hour comes."
Daeron's round eyes dart between both of yours, searching in your gaze the way children search in their parents’ — for permission, for certainty, for a safe place to land. “So you’re saying that… the hour will come for me someday?”
“It comes for every prince who lives long enough," you nod, brushing the pad of your thumb along his freckled cheekbone. “But not today. Today you are only meant to watch. And remember. And grow into a man who can someday bear it."
Daeron’s mouth parts to respond.
The door slams open before he can.
Ormund storms through the threshold like a sky of dark-black storm clouds blowing in — shoulders rigid, jaw tight, eyes glassy with a withheld fury. A folded letter is crushed beneath the firm grip of his left hand, while his right opens and closes in a fidgeting fist.
You feel Daeron tense beneath your palms accordingly.
“Best leave now, little prince," you murmur to him.
The boy nods and slips free of the room’s growing tension, casting one anxious glance at his uncle before shutting the heavy door behind him.
You watch from your worktable as Ormund crosses the expansive room in long, swift strides. A growl builds low in his throat before breaking finally free as he hurls the crumpled letter at the wall. “Useless craven!” His shout rings through the room. He swipes his forearm across the table in the same breath — a vase, a candle dish, an inkpot, and miscellaneous slips of parchment, all shatter against the cobbles in a bright, violent cascade.
“Coward— Cunt!” He unsheathes his sword from its hilt. The scrape of the steel hisses loudly in the quiet room. He drives the blade into the edge of the great oak desk until the wood splinters from the grain. He bellows through each blow. “Cunt! Cunt! Cuuunt!”
You watch wordlessly from afar, letting the storm pass on its own. Ormund’s chest heaves beneath with each wavering breath he fights to take through his nose. His sword hangs limp in his trembling hand. He closes his eyes and tilts his head back, struggling to ground himself again.
You say nothing as you walk to his side, lingering at his shoulder and grazing your knuckles along the warm tendon of his neck — from his jaw to his collar and back again. You can feel his pulse hammering beneath the burning skin. Ormund exhales evenly through his nose, leaning instinctively into your featherlight touch.
Only when his breaths come easier to him do you ask, “What’s happened, my lord?”
It takes him a long moment to find the words, longer to find the evenness in his voice. “My cousin has sent word from Harrenhal…” he says finally, slightly hoarse from his yelling, and sheathes his sword with a steadier hand. “It seems Daeron’s brother, Aemond, will not be joining us after all.”
“So Gwayne is coming in his stead?” you press lightly, splaying your fingers along the back of his neck, where his dark-auburn curls coil at the nape of it. “I’m sure Daeron will be glad to hear it, at least.”
“Yes. My cousin. Who I’d wager has never held a blade with intent in his life,” Ormund nods with a humorless laugh, though a palpable rage simmers behind the smile he gives. “We’re meant to rely on him for protection, in place of the biggest dragon known to man.”
You can feel the fury radiating off of him still, like heat waves glimmering off a flame. The raging coils tight beneath his skin; you can feel it humming like a plucked bowstring under your fingertips. You know this feeling in him well — you’ve tasted it before, took doses of his rage like medicine. Tonight it was a wellspring, sweet and plentiful and begging for somewhere to go.
“Give it to me,” you blurt suddenly.
Ormund blinks down at you, brows lowered in confusion, chest still rising too fast.
“Give it to me. All of it," you repeat, firmer this time. Your hand slips from his neck, down his taut shoulders, and over his chest. Your palm rests flat over his quilted doublet, over the furious drum of his heart. “Your anger. Give it to me. Let me take it from you— make something stronger out of it.”
Your fingers curl in his collar, drawing him closer towards you. You peer up at him from beneath your lashes, and he finds something dark swimming in your pleading gaze.
“Take it out on me,” you beg him, desperate in a way he hasn’t seen you before. “I can take it. I was made to take it."
Ormund watches with a lidded gaze as you plant yourself on the table ahead of him, right over the splintered gouge where his sword had shattered the wood. You lift your velvet dress skirts without once breaking his eye, unbothered by the wreckage of his previous outburst surrounding you. When the fabric is bunched high at your thighs, you spread them for him and rest back on your palms.
Ormund’s fingers twitch at his side in distant disbelief at your offering — at the sight of you laid open before him — at you. You watch the hesitation crumble his features; the way his adam’s apple bobs in his throat; the way his hands curl and uncurl into unsure fists.
The softness slips from your face all at once.
“Why are you holding back?” you ask, voice now stripped of everything gentle it carried moments ago. You tilt your head to your shoulder, studying him with a surgical precision — wondering which part of him to cut open first. Each word leaves your mouth like a sharp-edged blade tracing along the skin. “I know you hate that you couldn’t stop it— Your own knights, turning on the smallfolk you swore to protect.”
Ormund’s brows lower in confusion. “…What?”
“You watched them snap Ser Garrick’s arm and then strip him of his clothes to geld him for his sin,” you continue. “And you felt nothing but relief that it was done. That for one moment, you were in control of something… Say it.”
Ormund’s jaw clenches tight. He shakes his head to himself, mouth twitching. “Stop.”
“And all of it for naught…” you shrug, rising onto your palms. “Because you have no Aemond, no Vhagar— Nothing more than your cousin’s scraps. And now you must pretend like your plan isn’t unraveling by the second. Say it.”
A mixture of offense and fury twist across his face; one entirely indistinguishable from the other. His squinted eyes dart between yours, searching for the trickery in your gaze — for the mercy.
“Why are you doing this?” he asks, voice cracking like a boy’s instead of a knight’s.
“Daeron is your only hope now— your only defense against Rhaenyra, should her dragons come— and you cannot stand it,” you press, leaning forward still, moving your body in a slow and deliberate provocation. “You raised that boy, and still some part of you hates him. Every time he speaks, you hear his father’s voice living inside him, and you want so desperately to beat him for it. Beat all that kindness out of him until he’s just flesh you can control—”
“Stop it!”
The shout tears suddenly from his throat. His hand shoots out before reasoning can catch it ringed fingers close firmly around your throat with a primal sort of instinct. He can feel you, even now, flitting through his every thought like pages of a book. It terrifies him more than any battlefield ever has.
“—It’s why you’ve got that man in chains down there, isn’t it?” you continue through what little breath remains, smiling when Ormund’s features twist in shock at how you could know such a thing. “You want Daeron to be the one to kill him. You want to ruin that gentle boy just as much as prove to yourself that he’s more yours than Targaryen—”
“Enough,” Ormund spits through gritted teeth.
You smile wider when his fingers clench tighter around your throat, testing the give of you there. He finds none. You lift your hands and curl them around his wrist instead — neither pushing nor pulling him away, just holding him there.
“There it is,” you choke out with all the pride a woman who’s just gotten precisely what she asked for — a kitten to milk. “All that hatred. All of it. Give it to me.”
Something dark flashes across his face like lightning. He draws you in by the hand wrapped around your throat before you can blink, kissing you like he means to swallow you whole. It’s all tongue and teeth and spit — his nose smushes into the side of yours as he licks into your mouth with a ruthless abandon. The pad of his tongue feels like velvet against yours, tasting of bitter ale and sweet oranges.
You sigh hard through your nose at the distant burning in your throat from where his fingers hold you in an unrelenting grip — no longer choking you now, but making your head go heavy with a dizzy sort of feeling. You vaguely feel him shift before you, as he works his swordbelt off with his free hand to push his trousers down to his scruffy thighs.
You don’t see his cock before he pierces you with it, and there is no gentleness in him when he splits you open, though you ask him for none. A pained noise sounds in your throat at the distant burning feeling when he enters you with little warning; a rush of breath mixed with a whimper that makes Ormund falter for a moment.
You shake your head, stern again, when you catch the hesitation that threatens to return to him. “Don’t stop,” you command.
Ormund fights his every instinct to be gentle with you when he urges you flat against the oak table with the hand around your neck. His other grips the back of your thigh to keep you spread open for him as he thrusts hard enough into you to make the desk scrape against the hard stone beneath you, adding to the symphony of sin — to the sound of skin clapping against skin, to the wet sounds of him piercing you, and to the strangled grunts from the back of his throat as he chases his orgasm.
“Yes…” you sigh in contentment as the coarse thatch of hair above his cock rubs mercilessly against your clit. You hold him by the wrist to keep him close and praise him in breathless rambles. “Give it to me, my lord— I can take it— I was made for this, made for you—”
The words spill from your mouth with a calculated provocation, like you know all the right things to say to make him tick. Ormund can hear the lazy smile in your voice as you continue to babble; his chiseled features crumble under the weight of his pleasure, eyes squeezing shut in time with the pressure building in his taut stomach.
“You’re close… I can feel it,” you say between whimpered breaths, head tipping back against the table. Your grip on his wrist tightens. Your thighs tremble around either side of his waist as your own pleasure crescendos. “I want it— I want to make you feel good, my lord— I want to feel you leaking out of me—
“Fuck!” Ormund groans as he tenses suddenly above you. The sound turns into a quiet whimper when his cock begins to jerk violently within your unforgiving confines. “F-Fuck—”
His bruised hold on you loosens when he doubles suddenly on top of you. He braces himself on your hips instead, gripping you tightly there to keep you in place while he spits ropes of cum inside you. Your cunt pulses around him, threatening to suckle him in further.
He buries his pathetic whines in your neck and trembles through every wave of his orgasm, while your hips buck with the start of yours. You moan in his ear, fingers twisting in his wild curls — spurred on by the pressure on your sensitive clit, and by his warm seed blooming slowly inside of you.
“There it is…” you coo to him as you come down, feeling his tense body slowly relax on top of yours. “There you go, my lord… Yes… Let me have it…”
It takes Ormund a few moments more to sober from his pleasure. Dread settles like steel in his veins a second later; he smears his mouth over your throat, kissing you where his fingers had once dug into the delicate skin.
“I’m sorry,” he murmurs against your pulse. “I’m sorry, my love—”
You shake your head, still catching your breath. “You did nothing wrong, my lord.”
“I hurt you,” he chokes out, half-muffled.
“I wanted it,” you remind him, urging him off of your neck with your hands in his hair. His face is flushed pink and screwed with a mixture of pleasure and regret. Your lips curl into a slow smile up at him. “I wanted to make you feel good. You deserve to feel good.”
His chest swells with a foreign emotion that makes him suddenly feel like crying. He presses a searing kiss to your mouth instead. “Thank you,” he mutters against you. “Thank you…”
summary: there is a fine line between worship and desire, and ormund hightower has long forgotten where it lies. (2k)
pairing: ormund hightower / fem!witchy!reader
contents: mutual pining, worship as a love language (and a form of manipulation kinda), unhealthy devotion, sub!ormund lowkey, mild smut 18+ (MDNI)
Beyond the yawning arch of your open balcony, the Reach lay sleeping beneath a haze of silver mist. Green banners, bearing the sigil of House Hightower, whip against their posts — stirred by the cool night breeze that carries in the scent of damp earth, dewy grass, and the lingering smoke of dying cookfires. The air slipping through your doors mingles with the smell of incense and beeswax from prayer candles stained permanently within your chamber walls.
The room glows shades of amber from flickering torchlight, which dances across the pale stone and polished oak. The shelves lining the walls bow slightly beneath the weight of a hundred tiny glass vials, shimmering like emerald, sapphire, and ruby jewels beneath the guttering flames. An iron brazier burns sweet myrrh in one far corner, and in the other, steam curls lazily from a copper bath.
You laze in the scalding water; eyes lidded in quiet contemplation while your fingers skim the soapy surface, disturbing the white jasmine petals floating gently there. The sudden knock at your door does not startle you when it comes — in three measured, half-shy raps against the wood — as though a part of you had expected its coming somehow.
“Come,” you call into the quiet.
The heavy oak opens inward with a slow creaking sound. Lord Ormund enters with all the solemn reverence of a man stepping into a holy sanctuary. He freezes instantly in the doorway at the sight of you there, resting in the bath like an angel in a painting hung along an ancient sept wall — head lolled back, bare breasts rising and falling from ribbons of steam. For a long moment, he could not fathom looking away from it.
“Oh—” The noise escapes him like a punched-out breath. He falters in the doorway, turning his head and lowering his gaze, as speckles of pink creep up the collar of his green doublet. “I— I didn’t mean to disturb you, my lady.”
“You could never disturb me,” you hum with a tender smile. “Please. Come in.”
Ormund obeys. Ormund always obeys. He commands thousands of knights as leader of his house by day, but the simplest request from you always threatens to unravel him completely. He bends entirely to your will, perhaps more desperate for your approval than The Father’s.
The door clicks shut behind him. The room seems smaller for it, warmer, as the heat of the candlelight grows the moment he’s alone with you. He shifts on his weight like a shy child before you, clasping his pale hands behind his back like a squire awaiting instruction. He was a six-foot, broad-shouldered knight, but a single smile from you makes him want to get on his knees and pray.
“There is a vial on that shelf beside you,” you tell him, lifting your chin slightly to motion to it. “The clear one— If you would?”
His body answers before his mind. Ormund turns, as if every bone in his body was made to be under your control, and skims the shelves with a broad hand until his fingers find a slender bottle. “This one?”
“Yes.”
His boots pad firmly along the cobbles as he crosses the distance between you, towering over your copper tub. The candlelight turns his wild curls a deeper auburn shade of Hightower red; the dancing flames carve out half of his chiseled features in blurred shadow.
Water slips from your arm in clear rivulets as you raise a waiting hand, glittering breasts rising once more from the still water. Ormund clears his throat, adam’s apple bobbing as he glances politely elsewhere. “Is this another one of your… miracles?” he wonders aloud, because it felt too ungodly to call them potions.
You uncork the small bottle with a faint pop. You tap your pointer finger against the glass to empty a few drops into the warm bathwater below. “It’s only lavender, I’m afraid,” you confess.
“…Lavender,” he echoes with an owlish blink.
Your eyes gleam with amusement when they flit back up to his. “Do I disappoint you, my lord?”
“No. N-Never,” he stammers with a shake of his head. “I— I quite prefer the smell, actually.”
“I’m aware…” you lilt with a wider smile. “Perhaps, I should lend you a bottle when we march.”
Ormund swallows hard and forgets to speak. His mind reels at the thought of keeping a pomander of your bath water chained to his armor — to inhaling the sweet scent of your musk and bathing oils while in the heart of battle.
“The gods spoke to me in prayer this morning…” you start with a sigh, eyes fluttering shut as you relax further into the water, with the vial hanging loosely at your fingertips. “The Warrior said, ‘Tonight, you will enjoy your last bath before the war… Make it count.’”
Ormund’s strong brow furrows in a grave sort of look, appearing almost stricken.
Your lip lifts into a smile. “A joke, my lord,” you tell him. “Though not a very good one, I’m afraid.”
“Oh,” Ormund says with an awkward chuckle, as relief crosses his strong features in slow confusion. “Forgive me, my lady— Humor is not my strength, I’m afraid.”
“That’s because most jokes are lies… And you are devoted to the truth.”
He nods once, then frowns thoughtfully. “Well… If they are lies, my lady… Are they not best avoided?”
You tilt your head to your bare shoulder, regarding him with an unmistakable fondness. “Not always… Sometimes, a soul must first be led astray before it can discover the proper road… A trick that leads them to the truth.”
You motion your head towards the shelves across the room.
“Like those bottles…” you tell him and watch as his head swivels in the direction of them almost instantly. “The green one sends a pillar of emerald flame into the heavens if thrown into a fire… The blue one creates a cloud of black smoke that would make the most seasoned knights piss themselves in fear… And that pink one…”
Ormund turns back to you when you trail off, chest tugging at the smile that graces your lips.
“Yes?” he presses.
“If slipped into a man’s wine… Drives him absolutely mad with lust.”
Ormund freezes, breath hitching somewhere in his chest. It feels, for a moment, like he’s finally got an answer for his own insanity — an explanation of why his mind cannot seem to roam anywhere without bumping into thoughts of you.
“Did… did you… Did you use that on me?” he stammers.
That question hangs between you for several long moments. You tilt your head and peer up at him in a thoughtful sort of look. “…Would I have to?” you press with an arched brow.
His face flushes pink to the tips of his ears. His light eyes widen as the answer spills immediately from his lips. “No! N-No. Of— Of course not,” he stammers, lowering himself to his knee beside your bath like a scolded squire, like a pilgrim before an altar. It was instinct almost, to kneel at your feet. “Forgive me, my lady— I exist only to serve you.”
The words leave his mouth as if pulled out by a hand down his throat. It frightens him, how easily his faith has entangled with you — how often his eyes sought yours before the Seven-Pointed Star. He could no longer tell if he worshipped you because of the gods, or if he worshipped the gods because of you.
“There is nothing to forgive, my lord, I assure you,” you coo to him, as gentle as The Mother herself, though something mischievous dances in your eyes even still. “But… if you truly wish to serve me… Then serve me.”
Ormund’s breath catches, heart thundering hard behind his ribcage.
Your brows lift in an expectant look. “Take off your clothes.”
The man rises slowly to full height again, towering once more before you. You watch with an unwavering stare as he reaches for the buckles of his doublet, unlatching the golden buttons there with a pair of trembling hands. The emerald jacket falls to the cobbles with a quiet thud. His pale tunic follows, which he unties and then tugs off at the collar.
The canvas of his milky white torso is exposed to you, toned from years of knighthood, and sprinkled with sparse brown hair along the stomach and sternum.
He has to remind himself to breathe as his hands fumble with the button of his trousers, toeing off his boots simultaneously. The fabric falls to his ankles. He steps out of them with two firm steps, a lot more confident than his pounding heart. The cobbles are cool beneath his feet, and damp from the steam of your bath.
Ormund fights the instinctive urge to cover himself as your eyes part finally from his to trail down the length of his lean body. You find his cock hanging heavy between his scruffy thighs, favoring the left one as it curves slightly in that direction. Your head tilts once more to your shoulder in observation. Your eyes dart suddenly back to his face.
“Get in the bath,” you command.
So Ormund gets in the bath.
The water trickles as you shift within its depth to make room for the man. He steps in, one leg at a time, and braces the edge of the copper as he descends into the steam. His thighs spread between both of yours, knees bent to accommodate his taller form.
You set the vial on the edge before inching towards him. Ormund’s hairy chest hitches with an unsure breath when you straddle his waist, delicate hands braced along his broad shoulders. He’s imagined having you like this for so long, on him and all over him, that he can scarcely tell reality from his own boyish dreams.
The velvety skin of your inner thigh brushes his half-hard cock, and he feels half-heretic for it. He hates himself for imagining your cunt as it brushes the tip of length — hates how easily he can picture the petal-like folds parting around him and the way it would feel to pierce them with his manhood. He feels like he should fall to his knees and repent for it.
“I’m sorry, my lady,” he says on bated breath, adam’s apple bobbing when he tips his chin to meet your gaze. “It’s— It’s been a while. Forgive me.”
“It’s only flesh, my lord,” you shrug with a tender smile, stiff nipples brushing his bare chest. “It needs what it needs.”
Your fingers twist into the auburn tendrils curling at his temple and smile softly when Ormund leans instinctively into the warmth of your touch.
“There is no act done in service of the gods that could ever be called a sin,” you remind him.
He exhales a held breath. His hands rise from the water to reach for your body at your words, at your permission. They tremble with a strange hesitance he thought he lost in boyhood — yours was certainly not the first he’d ever touched, but perhaps the only one he truly revered. His palms are calloused from decades of training as they smooth up your soft stomach and over your ribs, before cupping the underside of your plush breasts.
“I thank the gods every day for bringing you to me,” he says on bated breath— a confession you can read all over his face every time he looks at you.
“Don’t thank me yet,” you remind him, tipping up his chin with your pointer finger when his lidded eyes lock on your breasts. “Not after I’ve won you this war.”
ormund hightower x wife!reader, mom figure!reader & daeron targaryen
cw: spoilers for ep 4!!, found family trope, reader thinks of daeron as her own, tension, religious themes, slight manipulation, fluff fluff, motherly reader!!, hurt/comfort, reader is very protective of daeron, emotional distress, quarelling, ormund does love his wife, petnames (my love, sweetheart, sweetling), (2.7kw).
synopsis: A child doesn't need to come from the womb to weave his way into your heart. Your husband knows as much.
a/n: this was a wip since the second episode sitting in my drafts, and now with episode four out, it sparked me to continue it! i love daeron so much, and so does reader. they're a dysfunctional family, but they make it work! guys this piece is very dear to me okay it's my baby i love it so much.
"From King Aemond."
"King?" You frown, looking at the young squire for confirmation, which he gives with a slow nod of his head.
"Yes, my lady," Daeron says, brows pinching, mimicking your bewilderment. "The messenger said so himself when he delivered the letter to Lord Ormund."
You huff, the news rattling you a bit, sighing as if the weight of what must've transpired back in King's Landing is already heavy to carry. "Gods helps us all."
Daeron's expression turns sympathetic as he sees your mood sour, prompting you to step closer, one hand moving to brush his cheek as you speak, your tone hushed but warm. "Don't give me that look," you scold, but it contradicts the softness of your touch and tone. "There's nothing to worry about." Your thumb smooths over his cheekbone, motherly and reassuring, as you always do when he's putting others' emotions onto his own young shoulders. "Ormund will know what to make of it."
"As always."
Both of you perk up at the familiar voice, watching as your husband enters the tent through the flaps, one eyebrow raised as he assesses the scene, eyes narrowing at the sight of your hand cradling Daeron's cheek, jaw clenching minutely. "Such matters are not for wives," he shoots you a look, "or squires," his voice dips to a firmer tone as he glances at Daeron, "to worry about." Ormund closes the flap behind him before continuing, seeking privacy. "Or talk behind their hands like gossiping mongrels where I cannot hear."
You feel Daeron tense beneath your hand, and your thumb brushes his cheek to soothe, huffing as you hold your husband's gaze. "The boy was just relaying information to me, which I am grateful for." Daeron relaxes under your touch, which makes you hum, sneaking him a small smile before turning your gaze back to Ormund. "As any squire would."
"He is my squire."
"I borrowed him," you counter, lifting your chin, not backing down.
"You cannot borrow someone's squire. It is unheard of."
"And yet you are hearing about it now. Novelties are common during wartime, are they not?"
The corner of Ormund's lips twitches for one moment at your audacity before he scoffs, eyes narrowed as he holds your gaze enough to let you know this will not be the end of this conversation. It sends a shiver down your spine.
"So they say," he responds, stepping closer, motioning with one hand towards the flap of the tent. "Go see what that beast of yours is doing, won't you? There are matters I must discuss with Lady Hightower." Ormund's tone is firm, brooking no argument as he waits for Daeron to obey, the young boy nodding curtly, before turning to do the same to you, albeit a touch more reverent.
"My lord, my lady."
You smile, thumb tracing his cheek once more before he moves, letting your hand fall to your side, watching as he makes haste towards the tent's exit.
The silence he leaves behind is thick for a heartbeat, two, before it is broken by your husband's voice. "You coddle him incessantly," he reprimands, face scrunching in distaste, as if such a thing offended him personally. "Petting him like a cat and cooing at him as if he were but a babe."
Being a touch theatrical has always been one of your husband's most endearing traits, and one of his most daunting, as you sometimes remind him, to his annoyance. You will never admit that poking at that certain flaw of his tickles you greatly, just as it does now.
"He is young," you combat, "and this is his first ever war. A gentle touch would do him well."
"Too gentle of a touch will soften him overmuch and he will not be fit to fight alongside me, as is his duty," your husband counters, tone resolute as he takes slow, measured steps towards you, eyes narrowed, jaw clenched. "You know this."
And you did. The importance of coming out victorious was paramount to your husband, his house, and his cause. Seating the rightful heir on the Iron Throne was the one thing that mattered most, and Ormund was hellbent on seeing it through to the end, by any means necessary.
"I am aware," your tone softens, sighing as you reach for him, hand touching his cheek as you did Daeron, but the difference was stark in the way you offered your affection, thumbing at the cut of his cheekbone with intent, leaning in until your breaths mingled. Ormund frowned, knowing you were trying to appease him, but didn't pull away, instead leaning into your touch, tilting his head into the cradle of your palm, eyes boring into yours. “But someone has to soften the rigour you instill in him, husband, for he shall not be cruel, but just, even in times of war.”
“Being just is not enough,” he protests again, and you can feel his jaw tighten beneath your hand, which you try to soothe with soft swipes of your thumb along the bone, a touch that he welcomes, despite the turmoil in his gaze. “If one needs to be heartless, then the Gods have willed it so.”
Your brows pinch together, the urge to try and make your husband see reason slowly curdling into something acrid. “Since when have the Gods willed a young boy to cruelty, Ormund?” Your tone is no longer soft nor warm, sharpening at the mere thought of Daeron being made into something he was not meant to be. “Is this what the Seven Pointed Star had taught us all these years?”
Ormund’s eyes widen for a fraction, the use of his name in such a cadence from you and the sting of your words halting his breath. He knew how fiercely protective you were of the boy, like a lioness with its cub, even if not yours by womb. Now it was his turn to try and bring back the sweetness in your tone, for he shall never admit it, but having his wife cross with him was a fate he did not particularly enjoy.
“My love,” he murmured, and tried not to react when he saw your expression pinch even more at the fond moniker. “Sometimes, in the midst of war, we cannot abide by all that The Faith has taught us, no matter how much we wish to grace the Gods with our deeds.” Ormund took a breath, trying not to get irritated when your pretty face didn’t soften an inch. “And that boy is fated to sit The Iron Throne, for his blood is pure, and not savage, and his teachings are proper, and not the stuff of legends long past.”
Sit the Iron Throne.
You took a step back, recoiling from your husband as if burned, the warmth of your touch no longer on his cheek as you whispered, mortified. “Sit the Iron Throne?”
Such plans were news to you, for Aemond was to be the rightful heir now that Aegon was gone. But it seems your husband’s ideals reached further than you could’ve ever conjured up yourself. Was it because Aemond was to be sent to Harrenhal? Did your husband believe Rhaenyra’s forces would slay Vhagar and thus leave the throne with no one to occupy it?
“No,” you said, resolute, fingers starting to tremble as you curled them into fists at your side. “I will not have my boy thrown into that den of vipers that we’ve tried so hard to keep him safe from.”
Ormund’s chest rattled with the deep breath he took, as if preparing himself for the onslaught of your dissatisfaction to come. “He is not—”
“Don’t you dare!” Your tone was sharp as steel, voice rising, all pretence gone now that your husband had braved to utter those words to you, knowing how much they would chip at your tender heart. “You know just as well as I that Daeron is more mine than anyone else’s. I have raised him since he was a babe—”
“And you have done so valiantly, my dear, but—” Ormund tries to soothe, but the bitter taste in your mouth from his words is more pungent than anything he could say to save himself from your wrath.
“Do not patronise me so!”
Your chest is heaving, and you feel those damnable pinpricks behind your eyes, moisture dampening your lash line, tears slowly forming, as if already feeling the grief of losing one of the things you cherish most. “King’s Landing is a wretched place, devoid of honour and swarming with enemies, and you want to send our—”
Our son.
But you stop, chin wobbling, not daring to say such a thing now, knowing it will do no good, and only make your husband protest further.
The sweetest boy, who hid his chubby little face into your skirts and clung to them when nightmares came at night, is now sentenced to a life you know he does not wish for. You can already feel your stomach churning with trepidation just at the thought, your gaze unwavering despite the tears brimming in your eyes to shoot daggers at your husband, who stays unmoving before you, looking equal parts irritated and unsure of how to proceed in the face of such strong emotions.
“I cannot, Ormund,” you whisper, voice breaking around the edges. “I shall not let you make a scheme of my boy just to fuel your own ambitions.”
You expect your husband to protest, to scream and rage and rip the very tent you’re in apart in his hands, but he does none of those things. Instead, he watches you, as calculated as he’s ever been, as if devising a plan to turn your sorrow into something for his own gain, or so you think.
What you do not anticipate is for Ormund to sigh, long and suffering, before walking towards you, lessening the distance between your bodies until his sword hilt bumps against your hip. “Do you believe that I am doing this solely for my own gain, my love?”
And you want to argue that, yes, you are certain of such things, for your husband was never one to not think of himself or his family first and foremost. But you don’t get to verbalise that, Ormund’s voice, softer than before, carrying that tone which could melt the marrow of your bones in mere seconds, but now, your impending grief is too great, your sorrow hardening you too much for such mellowness so quick.
“I do it for us,” he says, tilting his head to the side, bringing your faces closer, noses almost brushing. “For our legacy. For the future of House Hightower, which is now in ruins given the death of Otto and the usurpation of the King.”
You wish to protest, but your husband does not let you, sensing the argument on the tip of your tongue before it forms, a habit he picked up after more than a decade by your side, knowing you inside and out.
“Ascending Daeron to the throne will grant us power beyond our imagination, and allow the boy to live in a world of his own making.” The words are just and sound, but they do not go through you; the image of your sweet Daeron sitting upon that blasted throne full of swords and lies is too heavy on your heart.
“He will be in grave danger,” you croak, tears brimming along your lash line, slowly slipping down warm cheeks. “People will seek to harm him, to demand favours he’s not ready to offer, to—”
“And I will be in his shadow, making sure none of that comes to fruition,” Ormund says, tone brooking no argument, his gaze holding yours, willing you to see the seriousness of the matter. “If anyone dares to conspire against our boy, I will have their heads before they can draw their next breath. You have my word, sweet wife.”
Our boy.
You draw in a trembling, wet breath, your husband’s words breaking your heart and putting it back together in one fell swoop, a quiet, choked sob parting your lips as you try to utter a word back, anything to dismantle Ormund’s words, but you cannot.
“Oh, my love,” he coos, and it does not sound as condescending as it should’ve, as Ormund would pity those around him who show weakness. No, not with you. He wouldn’t dare make a spectacle of your tender, caring heart, which has grounded him many a time in his darkest, most turbulent moments. “Come here, sweetheart. Do not weep so.”
And you, powerless to resist, take the small step which is needed to bridge the distance between you, allowing your husband to cradle you in his arms, holding you as gently as one would a flower, but firm enough to make it known he wishes not to let go anytime soon.
One of his broad palms settles along your back, slowly smoothing down from the small of your back to the nape of your neck, the other anchored to the back of your head, coaxing you to rest your face along his throat. “Shh, shh, sweetling,” he whispers, turning his head to brush the words against your temple before pressing a soft, lingering kiss against your brow. “I will never let anything befall you or the boy. You know that with certainty.”
You do.
Gods, you do, but the fear that gripped your heart like a vice at the thought of such a grand plan was more powerful than reason and proof. Ormund had always gone above and beyond to ensure you and Daeron were safe at all times, even when he was away, instructing guards to follow you around like shadows and sit unmoving at your doors while you slumbered.
“I-i know, but the peril that awaits him if—”
Another kiss brushing your skin halted your incoming spiral, the feeling of your husband’s warm, rough lips against your temple melting you further into the safe strength of his arms, a haven in itself as you feared for what was to come. “The peril shall not exist. Our boy will have me, you, and more men-at-arms that I can count to keep him away from harm. In that, you must trust. In me, also.”
Your arms, which have hesitated until now, moved to grip at the back of your husband’s tunic as you embraced him tightly, needing a rock to cling to, nuzzling your face into his throat, dampening his skin with your tears as you sobbed quietly. “I trust in you more than life itself,” you croaked, and felt the pleased hum your words elicited from Ormund, as if the thought of you confiding in him so wholeheartedly brought him immense satisfaction. “But not that place, those people, that damned chair.”
“And you are right to do so, my love,” he approved, slowly putting weight from one foot to another, guiding your bodies into a gentle sway from side to side, meant to soothe you further. “Gods know everything the Targaryens touch is defiled beyond words. But we shall change that. Make it our own. A place where we and the boy can build a world fit for us alone.”
It sounded too good to be true, like a fairytale the septas would whisper to babes as they grew older, but the determined tone of your husband’s voice made you want to cling to this fantasy as well.
“Just us and our boy?” You murmured, fingers curling tighter into Ormund’s tunic, as if you could etch the very hope of such notions into his very bones.
“Yes, my sweet,” he whispered, brushing another lingering kiss to your temple, eyes fluttering shut as he held you close, still swaying. “Just us and our boy.”
─ pairing: Ormund Hightower x wife!reader
─ summary: you and your husband engage in some intense roleplay.
─ content: 18+ MDNI | shameless, filthy, nasty smut | no plot | p in v | degradation | rough sex | illusions of sex work | fluff at the end i guess | no character description
─ a/n: i cannot believe this is nearly 6k words… just horny on main fr. as always, thank you for reading. 🖤
The petitions had continued endlessly. Each one convinced their particular trouble outweighed the last. Ormund had sat through them all: a dispute over a millstream, a merchant guild demanding lower tariffs, a minor lordling whose son had impregnated a farmer's daughter and wanted the matter handled quietly. Governance. The word itself was leaden on his tongue.
He sank lower in the copper tub, letting the scalding water close over his chest, his shoulders, until it lapped at the hard line of his jaw. Steam curled from the surface in slow ribbons, fogging the stone walls, beading on the cool stones of the floor beyond the tub's rim. The heat found the knots between his shoulder blades and pressed into them, not quite enough, never quite enough. He let his head tip back against the rim and closed his eyes.
Behind the heavy linen curtain that divided the bathing space from the rest of the chamber, voices murmured. Yours, warm, threaded with amusement, and the lighter, quicker tones of two of your maids. A burst of laughter, hastily smothered. The rustle of fabric. More whispering. He caught the edge of a word that might have been shameless and another that sounded like he won't. He did not trouble himself with it. Whatever plot they hatched behind that curtain, it was not his concern. His concern, at this moment, was the slow unclenching of his jaw and the heat working through the ache in his back.
Then the chamber door clicked shut. The maids' footsteps retreated across the outer stone corridor, their giggling fading to nothing. Quiet settled over the room like a lid pressing down, save for the soft pad of your feet moving about, and the whisper of something being drawn from a hook.
"Come here," he called. His voice carried the rough, low grain of exhaustion. He shifted in the tub, water sloshing gently against the sides. "Let me gaze upon you before you sleep."
A pause. Then the curtain parted.
Ormund's mouth opened. No sound came.
You stood in the gap of parted linen, backlit by the candles on the far side of the room, and every detail of you hit him in sequence, each one landing harder than the last. The slip you wore, if it could be called that, was the scantest, most indecent scrap of silk he had ever laid eyes on. Sheer where it ought to have been solid, the fabric clung to your body like water, tracing the curve of your waist, the soft swell of your breasts, the small peaks of your nipples pressing against the gossamer as though the material simply was not there. It ended high on your thighs, high enough that the bare skin below the hem gleamed in the candlelight. Two threads of ribbon held the whole construction up over your shoulders, knotted at the front, thin as twine. A single breath would undo them. Your waist-length hair fell in heavy curls around your shoulders, and your eyes, warm, bright with mischief, held his.
He recovered enough to find his voice. "Come closer."
You crossed to him without hurry, settling on the edge of the tub, your hip pressing against the rim, and laid your hand against the side of his face. Your palm was warm and soft. He leaned into it. The stubble along his jaw rasped against your skin.
"I have missed you," he said.
You bent and kissed him, lingering there, your mouth moving against his with a gentleness that had no urgency in it.
"I have missed you more."
He reached out, his wet hand dripping, and caught the delicate hem of your slip between thumb and forefinger. He held it, examining it as though he did not understand what he was looking at. A smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth; the slow, crooked expression that surfaced only when something genuinely amused him.
"Why, I wonder, is your clothing budget so high, when it does not appear you wear any clothes?"
"Ormund." You rolled your eyes. "This is for you."
"Oh?"
"It's meant to excite a husband's loins." You said it plainly. "All the ladies have garments such as this."
He laughed. The sound came from somewhere deep in his chest, unused all day, and it loosened something in him. "When, precisely, did you acquire this?"
"Does it please you?"
He drew back to look at you again. The shift in angle let the candlelight catch the silk differently. The dip of your waist, the flare of your hips, the shadow between your thighs, all lay bare to him. His eyes moved over you slowly, cataloguing.
"You look as if you'd be at home at a pleasure house."
You gasped. Your hand snatched from his face, and you drew upright, mouth parting in affront.
He caught your hand before it could leave him entirely. His fingers closed around your wrist, firm, not rough, and he drew your knuckles to his mouth. His lips pressed against them, warm and damp from the bathwater, and he held them there a moment before speaking.
"I do not mean it unkindly," he said against your skin. "Only that you look as though you were made to confuse good men and lead them to ruin."
You held his gaze. The affront in your face cracked, crumbled, gave way to something else.
"Would you spend your coin on me?"
"I would give all the gold in my treasury," he said, his voice dropping, "for a night with you."
Something shifted in your smile. It turned sly, knowing, the warm playfulness draining from it only to be replaced by something more calculated. The two of you were no strangers to bedroom games, and though this had not initially been your intention, you saw no reason to change course.
You knelt beside the tub. The stone was cold against your bare knees, and the contrast with the heat rising from the water prickled along your skin. You folded your hands in your lap, straightened your back, and let your voice drop into something soft, submissive, and wicked.
"I have never seen you here before, my lord."
He caught on at once. The exhaustion in his face rearranged itself, and when he looked at you, the softness of a husband's gaze was gone, replaced by something cooler, more assessing; the gaze of a man who had paid for a service and intended to inspect the goods.
"You remember every man who passes through these doors?"
"No, but I would remember a man as handsome as you."
"I'm not here for flattery." He leaned back against the copper rim, and the water sluiced off his shoulders, running down the hard planes of his chest, catching the candlelight. He let you look. The muscles of his abdomen ridged beneath the water's surface, and the hair on his chest, darkened by the wet, lay flat against his skin. His arms rested along the edges of the tub.
"Why are you here, my lord?" You let your gaze trace the line of his arm where it rested on the tub's rim. "Does your wife not satisfy you as a husband deserves?"
His mouth curved. The stubble along his jaw caught the light. "My lady wife pleases me greatly."
"Then why," one finger extending to trace the thick vein that ran along his forearm, "would a contented man spend his coin on a woman such as me?"
Your fingertip moved slowly. The vein stood out against his skin and you followed it from the crease of his elbow to the ridge of bone at his wrist. His hand twitched. He did not pull away.
"Do you make your living sending men back to their wives?" he asked.
"I'm only curious, my lord." You could feel his pulse beating steady and strong beneath the thin skin.
He leaned toward you. The water shifted around him, lapping at the copper sides, the space between you closed until you could feel the heat coming off his skin, see the fine details of his face, the specks of pale green caught in the blue of his irises, visible only at this distance, like chips of sea-glass in deep water.
"Because my lady wife is a delicate creature. Gently born, gently bred." His eyes moved over you, taking in the way your kneeling position pressed your thighs together and made the hem ride up. "I would never do to her the things I'm going to do to you."
Something flickered across your face. Heat, delight, the sharp thrill of a challenge accepted. Your lips parted, your hand still resting on his wrist.
"Very well, my lord," Your voice was barely above a whisper, but it carried in the humid air, clear and steady. "Use me as you see fit."
Ormund gave you a crooked grin. The kind that crinkled the corner of one eye and bared the edge of his teeth. He planted one hand on the copper rim of the tub and carefully stood, water sluicing off him in sheets, running down the hard ridges of his stomach and the thick muscles of his thighs. His body was a map of old violence: a pale ridge across his ribs where a blade had caught him years ago, a raised mark along one shoulder, the silvery seam of an old stitch-job curling around his left forearm. Light brown hair dusted his chest, trailing down the center of his abdomen in a thin line that thickened below his navel. His cock hung heavy between his legs, already half-swollen, and as he stepped over the rim of the tub without reaching for a towel, water cascaded onto the stone floor in a wide splash that went utterly ignored.
He straightened to his full height and looked down at you, still dripping, still grinning. "Stop gaping and come here."
You took a step back. His grin widened.
"Don't be shy now," he purred, closing the distance. His hand closed around your wrist. Not rough, not gentle, just certain, and he drew you forward until your body met his. The wet heat of his skin soaked instantly through the sheer silk of your slip, plastering the fabric to your stomach, your breasts. "Touch me."
You raised your hands. Your fingers found the swell of his chest first, palms flat against the dense muscle as you trailed your hands down. You felt his abdomen tighten beneath your touch in a reflexive clench, tracing the ridges of his stomach, fingernails grazing through the trail of hair below his navel. One hand traced the hard cut of muscle at his hip, that sharp V-line that angled downward like an arrowhead pointing the way, and his cock twitched; thick and heavy and hard now, lifting away from his thigh. You looked up at him and found his gaze already on you. His eyes were dark, pupils blown so wide the blue had thinned to a narrow ring; the heat in them sent a warmth racing across your skin, prickling down your neck, between your breasts, pooling low in your belly. You looked back down.
He took your hand. Guided it. Wrapped your fingers around the shaft of him; hot, impossibly thick, the skin velvet-soft over iron hardness, and held you there. "There you go." He rolled his hips, a slow, controlled thrust into your grip, and the head of his cock pushed through the circle of your fist, slick with bathwater. You felt him pulse in your hand, a heartbeat made flesh.
"My lord, you cannot possibly mean to—"
Ormund's grin sharpened. A callback to your wedding night when you had teased him with that very phrase. "I assure you, I mean to give you all of it."
You stroked him again, slow, deliberate, your thumb dragging across the sensitive head. He hissed through his teeth, eyelids fluttering shut for one unguarded second. When his eyes opened again, the playfulness had burned away. What remained was something harder, hungrier, the look of a man done waiting.
"Get on the bed. Spread your legs."
You turned and walked. The stone floor was cold beneath your bare feet, water from his body marking a trail behind him as you crossed from the bathing area into the space where your bed stood. You could hear him behind you. Not rushing. He stalked after you the way a predator tracked something wounded, not running, because running implied the prey might escape, and you were going nowhere.
You reached the bed, grabbed the carved footboard, and scrambled up onto the mattress on your hands and knees, linens bunching under your knees. Then a large hand locked around your ankle. Iron grip. He yanked, and you slid backward across the sheets with a gasp, the silk of your slip riding up your thighs, your legs dangling off the edge of the bed. You rolled over. He stood between your knees, looking down at you.
"Take that off. I want to see what I'm paying for."
Your fingers trembled. You reached up to the thin straps of the slip, hooked them with your index fingers, and slid them down your shoulders. The fabric peeled away from your skin with the dampness of his bathwater still clinging to it, and the material pooled at your waist, baring your breasts to the cool air. Your nipples tightened instantly; partly the chill, mostly him. You shifted your hips, lifting yourself, and pulled the garment down your legs, past your knees, off entirely, letting it drop to the floor in a wet heap of silk. You lay back against the linens, hair fanning out around you in a wild dark halo, and looked up at him through the candlelit haze.
"Am I to your liking, my lord?"
"Yes," he said. "Very much."
He climbed onto the bed and moved over you, not straddling yet, just close enough that you could feel the heat radiating off his still-damp skin, close enough that the head of his cock brushed your thigh and left a wet smear. He braced himself on one arm above you and looked down, the corner of his mouth curled up.
"Do you touch yourself?"
The question hit you like a slap. Heat flooded your face, your neck, your chest, blooming down to your sternum. "I beg your pardon?!"
He chuckled. Low, dark, the sound rolling from deep in his chest. "Do not take that tone with me; you are not my wife."His voice dropped a register, quiet and hard, the voice he used when issuing commands. "Answer the question."
You swallowed. "Y-yes, my lord."
He raised an eyebrow. The interest in his eyes sharpened to a point, the blue nearly swallowed by black. "Show me."
You lay back against the linens. Your legs fell open slowly, first one knee tilting, then the other, your thighs parting in increments, your breath coming shallow and uneven. You had never done this before him. Your hands moved down your body, fingertips tracing the plane of your stomach, the curve of your hip, dipping lower. You found your core with two fingers and ran them down the length of your slit, feeling the shape of yourself, the softness of the outer folds and the slick heat between them. You drew your fingers back upward, circling your clit with the pad of your middle finger, and a breath escaped you at the contact, your stomach tensing.
You brought your fingers back down. Found your entrance. Found yourself wet, dripping, honestly, the arousal thick and slippery on your fingers. You pushed one finger inside, and a moan spilled out, soft and unguarded, as you began to move it slowly in and out, feeling the walls clench around the intrusion. You looked up.
Ormund was flushed; his hand was wrapped around his cock, stroking himself in long, slow pulls, his eyes locked on what you were doing between your legs. His head was flushed, dark, weeping a steady thread of clear fluid that his thumb smeared across the crown with each pass. His jaw was clenched so tight the muscle in his cheek jumped.
"That's it," he said. His voice was shaky. Cracked at the edges. "Add another."
You obeyed. Pushed a second finger in alongside the first, and the stretch made you gasp, your head tipping back against the linens. You picked up speed. Your fingers curled inside yourself, stroking the spongy front wall of your cunt, and the sounds you were making- soft, hitching moans, breathless little gasps- filled the chamber, mixing with the wet noise of your fingers working in and out of you. Your hips rolled against your own hand.
Ormund's breathing was ragged. "It's not enough, is it."
You shook your head. It wasn't. Your fingers were slim and delicate and could not reach the places inside you that ached to be filled. Could not stretch you the way you needed, could not pound into you with the weight and force that turned your bones to water. You needed his thick fingers, his thick cock, the mass of him bearing down on you to truly stretch you the way you liked.
"Use your words."
"No, my lord, I—" You pulled your fingers free, slick and glistening, and before you could say another word, he caught your wrist. Lifted your hand. Brought it to his face, inhaling deeply, his nose nearly touching your wet fingers. The sound he made was animal, a low groan in his chest. Then he took your fingers into his mouth. His tongue swept between them, lapping at the taste of you, curling around each digit, sucking the slick from your skin with a wet, obscene sound that made your thighs clench together. You gasped. Your free hand gripped the sheets.
He released your fingers with a slick pop and crawled over you. His large body caged you in. Arms on either side of your head, knees spreading your thighs wider, his cock hanging heavy and hot between you, the shaft dragging across your stomach as he settled his weight above you. The sheer size of him blotted out the candlelight. His shadow swallowed you.
He leaned down, his mouth beside your ear, his breath hot and damp against your temple. "I hope you are prepared, because I will not be gentle with you."
A jolt of electricity ran through you, starting at the base of your skull and crackling down your spine, through your belly, straight to your cunt. Wetness pooled between your legs, a fresh surge of slick that you felt drip onto the sheets. The thought of him using your body, taking what he wanted, made your thighs tremble. Your breath came in short, shallow pants.
"My body is yours, my lord."
He braced himself on one hand, and with the other he reached between you. You felt his fingers wrap around the shaft of his cock, felt the broad head of him drag through your silky folds, through the wetness, the heat, and the friction of it; even that light contact made your hips buck. You placed one hand on his shoulder, gripping the hard cap of muscle, and the other on his bicep, feeling the cords of muscle flex beneath your palm.
He pushed into you. The full length of him drove into you in a single, brutal thrust, and you cried out, a raw, ragged sound torn from somewhere deep in your chest. You had not prepared enough, your fingers too slender, too few, for the girth of him forcing you open around his cock. You felt every inch. The sting was sharp and bright, and you loved it; loved the ache of it.
He pressed his weight onto you. His strong arms gripped you tight, pulling you against him as he sank even deeper, and you clawed at his back, fingernails raking down the sweat-damp skin, leaving red lines across his shoulder blades. He held himself there, buried to the hilt, and you felt him throbbing. A pulse that matched the hammering of your own heart. His jaw was clenched, his breath coming in short, harsh bursts through his nose. He was adjusting to the feel of you.
"You're so tight for a whore," he said through gritted teeth, and the words vibrated against your throat.
You managed to find your voice. It came out breathless. "My mistress reserves me for only the most special clients."
He leaned back onto his knees, his cock still buried inside you to the root. The new angle shifted him against your front wall, and you bit your lip. "Is that so?" he asked, one eyebrow arched.
You rolled your hips. The friction dragged a sound from both of you simultaneously. "Yes," your voice had gone half-wrecked already, trembling at the edges. "Rich men usually have small cocks."
He tilted his head. His eyes narrowed. The blue had vanished entirely; only black remained, bottomless and bright with something dangerous. Then, slowly, a grin spread across his face, the kind that preceded ruin.
"I am going to enjoy this very much."
He pulled out. The drag of him was slow; you felt every ridge, every vein of his cock as it withdrew. The suction of your cunt gripping him, trying to hold him in, until only the head remained inside, the thick crown stretching your entrance. Then he slammed back in. One brutal, full-length thrust that drove the air from your lungs and punched a cry out of your throat that echoed off the stone walls.
He did it again. Pulled out to the tip. Drove back in. You felt him carving his way into you, reshaping you around him, the drag of every vein against your swollen walls as he withdrew only to plunge back in, each thrust so deep it felt as though he were reaching your throat. The wet, obscene sound of skin meeting skin filled the chamber; squelch, slap, squelch, the bed frame groaning beneath you, linens bunching and twisting under your back.
You bit your lip. Pressed your mouth shut, trying to muffle the sounds climbing out of your throat. He noticed.
"No. I pay for those sounds." His voice was rough. "Let me hear them."
He delivered another harsh thrust; deeper, harder, his hips cracking against yours, and the moan that ripped out of you was loud, uncontrolled, bouncing off the walls. Your back arched off the bed.
He picked up his pace. Thrust after thrust of him using your body for his pleasure, his hips driving forward in a relentless, battering rhythm that shoved you up the bed until your headboard rattled with each impact. You could hear yourself; wet, desperate, the sounds you were making beyond your control, moans and gasps and broken syllables that might have been his name.
"Harder," you begged, the word coming out a sob of want.
His hand found your throat. His fingers wrapped around the front of your neck; not squeezing the airway, but pressing, claiming. The weight of his palm against your pulse. Both your hands flew to his wrist, wrapping around the bone, just holding on. He slammed into you harder. Each thrust driving the breath from you, the sound from you, the thoughts from you.
He had never handled you like this. Never spoken to you this way. Each filthy word that dropped from his mouth, each degradation, each dark praise, traveled straight to your cunt like a physical touch, making you clench and drip around him.
"You dirty whore," he growled, his thumb pressed against the side of your neck, feeling your pulse hammer. "Getting off like this. Wanting to be fucked like this."
You could only moan. Heat overwhelmed heat. Your skin was burning where his body met yours. The coil of pleasure wound tight in your belly, a spring being compressed to its limit. You felt the hair at the base of his cock grinding against your clit with every thrust, the friction sending sparks up your spine, and it was so much, too much, the sensation layering and building until you could barely breathe—
Your orgasm hit you. Hard. Your whole body seized, clenching in violent, rhythmic spasms around his cock, your back arching off the bed, your nails digging into the thick muscle of his back hard enough to leave crescents. You came with a sound that was half-scream, half-sob, your thighs clamping around his hips, body shaking. He groaned above you, a deep, guttural sound, and you felt his rhythm falter for one stroke as your spasming cunt milked him.
He continued fucking into you through your orgasm. Each thrust prolonged the waves crashing through you, drawing them out, stretching the pleasure into something almost unbearable. You whimpered, oversensitive, your hands falling away from his back to grip the sheets, twisting the linen in fists. He rode you through the aftershocks, his pace still brutal, still relentless, until the pleasure edged toward pain.
Then he released your throat and stilled his hips. You blinked up at him, dazed, as he pulled out of you. The sudden emptiness was shocking. You were gaped open, fucked loose and swollen, slick with your own arousal, clenching around nothing. You opened your mouth to speak. He flipped you over. One hand on your hip, rolling you bodily across the rumpled sheets, and you found yourself on weak hands and weaker knees. Ormund's hands gripped your hips. The broad head of his cock pressed against your entrance, still slick with your orgasm, and you felt him lean over you, his chest against your back, his mouth near your ear.
"My turn," he said.
He pushed in, slower than before but still splitting you open, filling you so completely that there was no room for anything else. No air, no thought, just the overwhelming reality of being fucked.
He began to pound into you like an animal, snapping his hips forward with enough force to rock the heavy bed frame against the stone wall.
"Take it," he snarled, his voice unrecognizable.
He released one side only to snatch both of your wrists, yanking them behind your back, pinning them there, using the leverage to force your upper body down into the mattress. Your face was pressed against the linens, your breath coming in short, desperate gasps. The bed creaked and groaned under the assault, the wooden frame sounding as if it might splinter at any moment.
Your arms were useless, trapped in his grip, legs trembling violently, your muscles burning from the strain of maintaining the position on your hands and knees. Slowly, your knees gave out. Ormund let your wrists go as you collapsed, allowing you to fall flat against the mattress. He followed you down, covering your body with his while he continued to thrust into your prone form.
The angle change hit you deeper, rubbing against spots inside you that made your vision white out. He slowed his pace just fractionally, grinding into you instead of thrusting, torturing you with the depth.
"Are you going to peak again?" he rasped against your ear, his breath hot and ragged.
You let out a groan and nodded your face against the sheets. "Already?" he mocked, his voice dripping with dark amusement. "What kind of greedy whore finds her pleasure twice before a customer achieves his once?"
You could only babble, incoherent pleas falling from your lips, your mind shattered by the relentless stimulation. "Please... Ormund... I can't..."
He reached around your hip, his fingers finding your swollen, sensitive clit. He rubbed it roughly, in tight, fast circles, matching the tempo of his hips. You screamed his name as the second orgasm tore through you.
"Fuck!" Ormund roared.
He slammed into you one final time, burying himself to the hilt, and held himself there as his body seized, spilling inside you, his cock pulsing as he filled you with his seed. He groaned low in his throat, his eyes squeezed shut, every muscle in his body locked in a rictus of pleasure.
Then he pulled out slowly. The movement dragged a whimper from your lips. He shifted back, kneeling between your legs, and watched with fascination as his cum began to leak out of you. It was a thick, white trickle, running slowly down your thighs, mingling with the slick evidence of your own arousal. You looked thoroughly fucked, used, ruined in the best possible way.
Ormund threw his head back, his skin glistening with sweat in the dim light. "Fuck," he breathed, the word a prayer.
The energy in the room began to settle, giving way to a heavy, sated exhaustion. He collapsed onto the bed beside you, lying on his back and staring up at the ceiling as his heart rate slowly returned to normal.
After a moment, he turned onto his side. He reached out with a gentle hand, wiping the sweat-soaked baby hairs from your forehead and brow. His touch was tender now, a stark contrast to the moments before. You opened your eyes to look at him. They were glassy, unfocused, but filled with a deep, lingering warmth.
"Are you alright?" he asked. The game was over. The role shed, leaving only your doting husband.
You nodded, unable to find your voice just yet.
"I have never..." He started, then stopped, shaking his head as if unable to articulate the magnitude of what had just passed between you. He groaned as he sat up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. His body ached in the most satisfying way.
You continued to just lay there on your stomach, thinking of what had passed. Your mind was a haze of pleasure, the boundaries between the fantasy and reality blurring.
Ormund stood and walked across the room, his movements slow and heavy. He returned a moment later with a warm, damp cloth. The first touch of it between your legs made you gasp. You were sensitive, swollen from the rough handling, and even the gentle pressure was intense.
"I'm sorry," he murmured. "Relax."
He wiped you so gently, cleaning away the mess of your coupling with a care that belied his earlier ferocity, taking his time, ensuring he was thorough. When he was done, he discarded the cloth onto the floor and pulled back the heavy duvet, gathering you into his arms as if you weighed nothing. You curled into his chest, burying your face in his neck.
"You were so perfect," he whispered into your hair, pressing a kiss to your temple.
You shifted, propping yourself up slightly on his chest to look at him. A shadow of doubt crossed your features, a vulnerability that hadn't been there during the game.
"Is that what you need to be happy?" you asked softly. "Have you been unsatisfied before in our marriage bed?"
Ormund looked at you, blue eyes serious. He reached up to stroke your cheek, his thumb brushing over your soft skin.
"I am very happy. More than I deserve."
He leaned in to kiss you, a slow, deep kiss that tasted of salt and lingering desire. He pulled back just enough to rest his forehead against yours.
"If I made you feel as though— I am sorry."
You kissed him again, laying your head back on his chest, listening to the steady thrum of his heartbeat. The fear dissolved, replaced by a warm glow of security. You traced idle patterns on his chest, your mind drifting back to the thrill of the act.
"Next time," you murmured sleepily. "I am in control."
Ormund ran his hand down your back, soothing you. "Oh, really?" You could hear the smile in his voice. "What would you like to try?"
You smiled against his skin, a mischievous glint returning to your eyes. "Perhaps I can be a princess, and you can be a dark knight holding me for ransom."
Ormund laughed out loud, a deep sound that startled the quiet room. "You're going to fuck your way to freedom?" You smacked his chest, feigning outrage. "I will not tell you my desires if you are going to laugh!"
He caught your hand, interlacing your fingers, rolling you both over, shifting his weight so he was looking down at you. The playfulness in his expression softened into something warmer and infinitely devoted.
"I will be anything you want me to be," he said, his gaze holding yours captive. "Servant, king, beggar. Whatever you wish."
Warning(s): +18 MDNI, explicit sexual content, established relationship, married couple, emotional intimacy, yearning, so much yearning, angst with a hopeful ending, AFAB reader, fingering, oral sex (fem receiving), penetrative sex, rough sex, dom/sub dynamics, power struggle, dirty talk, scent kink, possessive behavior, biting, marking, multiple orgasms, creampie, slight religious themes, reader insert (no use of y/n).
Dividers by @strangergraphics and @bbyg4rlhelps
The raven arrived on a cool, midweek morning, which was how you would always remember it. Not because those mornings carried any particular weight in the rhythm of the Seven, but because you had been in the solar when Ormund found you, sitting with your accounts spread across the desk in the morning light, and you had looked up at him in the doorway and known — before he said a single word — that something had shifted.
He did not announce things with his face. That was not his way. But you had had years enough to learn the grammar of his silences, and the one he carried in with him that afternoon was a different species from his ordinary quiet. It had weight to it. Shape.
He closed the door behind him.
"That look on you," you said, and he was already crossing toward you. "Is something amiss?"
The corner of his mouth moved. Not quite a smile. The acknowledgment that you had read him again, and that he had permitted it.
He sat in the chair across from yours — not beside you, which told you this was a conversation he wanted to conduct with some amount of formality. He set the letter on the desk between you without preamble and let you read it yourself, because he had always understood that you did not need things explained to you. It was one of the things he loved about you, though he would not have used that word in that order. He would have said, if asked in public, that it was one of the things he deeply respected about his lady wife.
You read it twice. Then you set it down.
"When?" you asked.
"A fortnight. Perhaps less, if the lords of the Reach move quickly." He watched you with that particular stillness of his, the kind that other people mistook for patience. You knew better. He was calculating. Measuring your response against his own.
"They will move quickly," you said. "They know what this call means."
"I am afraid so."
You looked at him across the desk — the accounts between you, the raven's letter, all the small machinery of a household that would continue to function after he left it.
"Aegon is the rightful king," you said. Not as a question. Not even as reassurance. Simply as a fact you were placing between you like a stone foundation. This is what we are built on. "Rhaenyra has always been a spoiled, wilful girl. And now men must march and dragons must fly because she cannot suffer the world to be ordered as it ought to be." You shook your head, a brief, precise movement — not anger exactly, but the particular mild contempt you reserved for problems that should never have existed. "I know not how Alicent endured her all those years. The patience that must have required."
Something moved in his expression then. Brief, controlled, and unmistakable to you. It was what passed, in Ormund Hightower, for being moved — and for being quietly, deeply pleased.
"It is what always happens with these Targaryens," he said. His voice was even, measured, the voice of a man stating observable fact rather than venting grievance. He had no interest in grievance. Grievance was for men who had not yet accepted that the world required managing. "They are raised to believe that want and right are the same thing. That a dragon at one's back is sufficient substitute for legitimacy." He looked at the letter, then back at you. "Viserys named her his heir and thought that settled the matter. As though a king's wish were law unto itself, regardless of custom, regardless of precedent, regardless of—" He paused. Let the sentence close without finishing it, because he did not need to finish it. You both knew what it was regardless of. Regardless of everything House Hightower had spent centuries upholding. "She was always going to do this. The moment Viserys died, this was always where it led."
"Yes," you agreed.
He looked at you across the desk. "And you are not afraid of war."
"I am a Hightower," you said — which was not the name you were born with, but was entirely what you had become, and you both knew it. "I know what we are built on. I know what you ride to defend. And you know that had I been born a man, I would ride first into battle." You held his gaze.
Ormund looked at you with that kind of light he reserved for truly special moments. "It is a trait of yours that I have come to deeply admire along the years," he admitted.
The corner of your mouth moved slightly upwards at his praise. It was something that not everybody was gifted with: the praise of the Voice of Oldtown.
"You have a holy purpose before you, husband," you leaned back on your chair, eyes still fixed on his. "Go and defend it as only you can."
The same expression again. Brief, controlled. Unmistakable.
"Yes," he said. The same word he had used before, but weighted differently now — not agreement, but something closer to a vow.
The days that followed had a quality you could not name precisely — not grief, because you refused grief, and not ordinary life either, because nothing about it was ordinary. It was something in between. Heightened. Every evening meal felt significant. Every time he crossed a room you were in, you were aware of it.
Ormund spent most of his daylight hours in meetings. Maester, stewards, captains, septons. You heard them through closed doors, his voice unhurried and precise, issuing instructions that would outlast his presence here. He was not the kind of man who left loose ends. Before he went to war, he would ensure that every thread of the Hightower's administration was tied, labelled, and accounted for.
You managed your own parallel lists. The household. The provisions. The correspondence that would fall to you. You had always been competent — Ormund had not married you for beauty alone, though he had never pretended indifference to that either — and you would not become less so simply because he was leaving.
The last evening before his departure, you found him late in his study, the candles burned low, maps spread across every surface. He did not hear you enter. Or rather — and you suspected this was more likely — he heard you and chose not to turn, because sometimes he liked to see how close you would come before you announced yourself.
You came very close. You placed your hand flat against the center of his back, between his shoulder blades and through the soft fabric of his undershirt, and felt him draw a slow breath.
"Come to bed," you murmured, and pressed a soft kiss at the middle of his back, just were your hand was resting.
He turned then. In the low candlelight, looking down at you, something in his face was more unguarded than usual. Not entirely soft, but open, in the way a door is open — an invitation rather than a vulnerability.
"In a moment," he took your wrist in his hand and threw you a half, tired smile.
"Now," you took his hand in yours and pulled slightly.
His jaw shifted. The faintest tightening. You watched it happen and felt the familiar current move through you — the particular pleasure of prodding at a controlled man and watching control hold, barely, like a dam under pressure.
He looked at you for a long moment, and when he spoke his voice was lower than before. "You would keep a soldier from revisiting strategic matters the night before his leaving?"
It was not entirely a complaint, you could sense it in the slight playfulness of his voice.
"I would remind my husband exactly what to return home to," you pulled slightly harder at his absence of complaint.
He put his free hand at the back of your neck — not rough, not yet, but with that proprietary certainty that had never once in your marriage felt like presumption, because you had always understood it for what it was. Mine, that hand said. And you don't mind.
You didn't mind.
He walked you out of the study and down the corridor to your shared chambers, his hand never leaving you, and when he shut the door behind you both he stood for a moment just looking at you in the firelight. This, too, was something he did. He looked at you. Fully, without apology, with the same focused attention he gave to other things, as though you were something worth understanding thoroughly.
Then he crossed to you and embraced your whole body with big, hungry arms, his face pressed against your hair.
You felt him inhale slowly. Deliberately. His hands came to your hips and tightened as he breathed you in — your hair, your skin, the particular warmth of you — and a sound left him that was barely a sound at all. More of a release. The hinge of control loosening a single degree.
"Ormund," you whined slightly.
"Let me," His mouth moved to your temple, your cheek, the side of your throat. Scenting you in that slow, thorough way of his, like he was committing you to some part of himself that had nothing to do with memory. "Let me breathe you in until your scent settles as deep as my own bones."
You tilted your head and let him take what he needed, and you waited — because you both knew this was only the beginning, and you were very good at knowing when to wait.
His mouth found your pulse point. Pressed. Then his teeth. And there it was again: that pull between you, familiar as breathing, that had never once in all your years of marriage resolved itself into anything as simple as surrender.
You turned your head just slightly. Just enough that your mouth was close to his jaw, his throat, the particular place below his ear where the skin was warm and the muscle ran taut.
You had discovered that place less than a year into your marriage, on a night not entirely unlike this one — urgent, unplanned, both of you reaching for something that did not have a name. Your teeth had grazed it almost by accident and Ormund Hightower, Beacon of the South, had made a sound like a man struck.
You had filed the knowledge away immediately, and you had used it shamelessly ever since.
Now you felt him tense as your mouth neared it — he always knew, and the knowing never helped him — and you did not rush. You pressed your lips there first. Felt him go very still. The kind of still that was not composure but its opposite: a man holding himself together by will alone.
"Don't," he whispered against your temple. His voice had dropped entirely.
"I'm not doing anything," you said against his skin, tongue already tracing its prey.
"You know," he breathed, "exactly what you're doing."
You smiled and he felt it against his warm skin.
Then you bit him — not hard, but precisely, at that exact point you had mapped years ago — and Ormund's hands seized your hips with a force that lifted you off your feet entirely, and everything else became the particular, excellent chaos of the two of you.
He carried you to the bed, not gently — Ormund did nothing in this room gently, which was precisely how you wanted it. He did it with that controlled, purposeful strength of his, the kind that never felt like force because it was always entirely deliberate. He knew what he was doing. He always knew what he was doing. His hands under your arse supporting your weight were certain, and the way he set you down on the edge of the mattress was less a tenderness than a placement. Here, his hands said. I'm putting you here because I want you here.
You looked up at him with a look that would clearly scandalize septons.
He was looking back at you with that same gaze mirrored in his deep blue eyes. It brought you a special kind of perverted satisfaction to know that you were the only person in the Seven Kingdoms who got those looks from him. His public face was composed, measured, impenetrable. This face, almost entirely consumed by desire, belonged only to this room. Only to you.
"You bit me again," he said, slowly sinking down to his knees in front of you.
"I did," you agreed, your eyes following his through the movement.
"You always bite me."
"You always let me," you bit your lip in delight, seeing precisely how it always affected him.
He exhaled through his nose — that particular sound, half exasperation and half something far warmer — and reached for you. His hands found the laces at your back and he worked them with the same precision he applied to everything, unhurried, thorough, until the fabric loosened and he drew it from your shoulders and down. You squirmed out of the fabric and leaned back on your elbows onto the mattress.
Then he simply leaned on his heels and looked at you.
That was the other thing he usually did and that you adored of him. He refused to rush past the looking, no matter how many times he had seen you, no matter how many years had made your body familiar to him. He looked at you every time as though he was recalculating something. As though you continued to be, to him, a miracle that required his entire attention to worship.
"Gods," he said quietly. Not performed. Not meant to flatter. Just the word, dropped into the silence, the way a man drops something heavy he has been carrying.
You reached for him — his shirt, the buttons at his collar — and he caught your wrists.
"No," he said.
"Ormund—" you protested.
"No." He drew your wrists together, held them in one hand with an ease that was its own particular indignity, because you could not move and you both knew it, and the look on his face told you he knew exactly what that did to you. "You had your moment with your teeth. Now you're going to let me have mine."
You considered arguing. The consideration lasted approximately two seconds, because then he put his mouth to your bare shoulder and breathed in, slow and deep, his lips brushing the skin without quite kissing it, and every thought you had dissolved cleanly away. He used the momentum of his kiss to press you fully to the mattress, your hands, still held together at your wrists by a single hand, above your head.
"There," he murmured against you, his body climbing to cover yours. The word was almost private, said to himself as much as to you. His face moved along your shoulder, your throat, nosing into the curve of your neck with single-minded attention, and the sound that left him there was deep and involuntary and real in a way that Ormund's sounds rarely were. "Gods, you are a fucking temptress."
His mouth opened against your throat. He tasted you there — tongue and lips and the slow drag of sensation that made your spine soften — and his grip on your wrists tightened for a moment, pure reflex, as though tasting you had cost him something too.
"Do you know," he said, his mouth still against your skin, moving now toward your collarbone, "what you do to me." It was not a question. His voice was low and even and precise, the same voice he used to dictate letters and issue orders, except stripped of all its distance. "I have thought about this. All day. Through every meeting, every map, every conversation about supply lines and march routes. I thought about this." His mouth found the curve of your breast. "About you." His tongue traced a slow line. "About how you feel."
"Ormund—" you tried again.
"I am talking," he said and bit one of your nipples and got a surprised, wanton hiss from you. "I am telling you how enticing you are, my love. You might consider listening to my compliments," his voice carried a clear amount of teasing.
He released your wrists — not because you won that particular contest, but because he had decided he needed both hands now, which was an entirely different thing — and his palms spread flat against your ribcage, holding you still while his mouth continued its thorough inventory of you.
You got your hands into his hair, slightly pulling, which you knew he loved. He let you keep them there, a small groan coming out of his throat at the feeling of your fingers through his scalp.
"I have tried," he continued, between slow, deliberate tastes of the skin on your sternum, "to think of a way to carry you with me. I have actually considered it." A pause. His mouth at the underside of your breast, tongue tracing the curve. "I suspected you would refuse the question."
"I would refuse," you confirmed, breathless. Not because the idea of following your husband displeased you — you would follow him to the Seven Hells would he ask, just as you knew he would do the same should you ask it of him — but because you knew a battlefield was no place for a woman.
"I know. So instead—" he mouthed down your upper stomach, his hands sliding to your hips— "I intend to learn you. All of you. Again. So that I have something precise to remember." He looked up at you from where he was, his eyes dark and entirely focused. "Hold still for me."
"I will not," you warned him.
"You will try," he said, and his hands moved to your thighs and pulled them open.
He was meticulous. That was the only word for it. Ormund approached this the way he approached everything — with patience, with thoroughness, with the absolute conviction that there was no point in doing something if you were not going to do it properly. He mapped you with his mouth, the dip of your navel, the jut of your hip, the soft skin of your inner thigh, and every time you moved he pinned you back with those immovable hands as though you were a document he was trying to read and your fidgeting was obscuring the text.
"You're impossible," you managed between breaths.
"I'm thorough," he corrected, and mouthed at the crease of your hip, and you felt his chest shake once — a laugh, almost, barely contained — as you made a sound that was considerably less composed than you would have liked.
When he finally put his mouth on you it was without preamble, without teasing, because Ormund did not tease — he committed. He opened his mouth against you fully, tasted you with one long, flat stroke of his tongue from entrance to clit, and the sound he made as he did it was immediate and involuntary — a low, rough groan that vibrated against you and did not stop, like a man who had been waiting a long time for something and had finally, finally been given it.
He did it again. Slower. His tongue traced you with precision, learning the geography of you the way he learned everything, thoroughly and without haste, mapping where you gasped and where your hips tried to roll toward him and where the sound you made shifted pitch. Every time you moved he held you down with those hands — hard around your thighs, immovable — and continued at exactly the pace he had decided on, which was not the pace you wanted and was somehow, devastatingly, better.
He buried his face against you and breathed in.
The sound that came from him then was different from anything else — wrecked and open and real, the sound of a man undone not by what he was doing but by the smell of you, by the particular intimacy of being this close, this surrounded. His hands pulled you toward him rather than holding you still. He pressed his face against you like a man pressing into something he had been denied and intended to make up for lost time.
"Gods," he breathed against you, lips moving against your folds as he spoke. "You—" He stopped. Pressed his mouth to you again — not a stroke this time but just contact, warm and deliberate, his lips against your clit while he gathered himself. "You are—" He lifted his head just enough to look at you, his eyes dark and his mouth wet with your arousal, and the look on his face was the most undisguised thing you had ever seen on him. "I would stay here," he said, between one devastating drag of his tongue and the next, his mouth returning to you between each word like he could not help it. "Indefinitely. If you would let me. If the world would let me." Another stroke, the flat of his tongue slow and thorough. Your hands tightened in his hair. "I would consider it a worthy use of my lifetime."
"Please—"
He answered by closing his lips around your clit and sucking — brief, controlled, precisely calibrated — and the noise you made was not dignified at all.
"Tell me," he said against you, his breath warm. "Tell me you know what you are to me."
You looked down at him. He was watching you even now — even here, even like this, he was looking at your face, reading you, cataloguing you, his chin tilted up and his eyes steady on yours while his tongue moved in slow circles that made sustained thought nearly impossible.
"Say it," he pressed.
"I'm yours," you moaned, which was not precisely what he asked but was, you both knew, the truest version of the answer. "Only yours, Ormund."
Something in him gave way at that. His tongue pressed flat against you and then the tip of it found your entrance and pushed in — shallow, then deeper, fucking into you in slow deliberate strokes while his nose pressed against your clit, and the sound of it was obscene and wet and his groan at the taste of you inside was low and continuous and entirely lost. Your thighs tried to close around his head. He let them, turned it into leverage, his hands sliding under you to grip your hips and angle you exactly where he wanted while his tongue worked you open.
Then he withdrew it, dragged the flat of his tongue back up to your clit, and sucked there.
You felt him work a finger into you — one, slow, feeling you clench around it with a sharp exhale against your thigh. Then a second, pressed alongside the first, curling slightly on the withdrawal in a way that made your spine arch off the mattress. He fucked them into you at the same steady pace his tongue kept on your clit, and the combination of it — his mouth and his hand and the sounds he was making against you, like a man at prayer, like a man absolutely ruined — built something in you that had no gradual approach, just an edge, sudden and absolute.
"Ormund—" His name came out broken.
He felt it in the way you tightened around his fingers. His tongue pressed harder, his fingers curled, and his free hand came flat against your stomach and held you down as you came — not away from him but into him, your hips driving against his face as he held you there and took everything you gave him, his mouth open against you and breathing you in through every wave of it, his groan vibrating against your clit until the last of it had wrung itself out of you.
He kept his fingers inside you. Kept his mouth on you, gentler now, lips soft where his tongue had been relentless, as though he was unwilling to leave entirely. His face pressed against your inner thigh and he breathed — long, slow, deliberate — like a man storing something precious against a long winter.
He did not let you recover, however. That would not have been like him.
He was kissing back up your body before you had finished — your stomach, your ribs, the underside of your breast — and you used the moment, because you always used the moment, and got your hands under his shirt. Got it over his head. He allowed it because he was occupied with your throat and because somewhere in the last few minutes the balance of control had quietly shifted in the way it always did with you two — not a defeat for either of you but a renegotiation, conducted entirely without words.
You got your mouth to his neck. His jaw, tasting yourself there. The soft skin below his ear. He went still.
"Don't," he warned. The word barely had any voice or sternness in it.
"My love," you purred sweetly, against that particular point of skin.
"I am warning you—"
You bit him.
His whole body shuddered once, like a struck bell, and then his hands were at your hips, flipping you and earning a high-pitched laugh from you. He repositioned you with a brisk decisive authority that might have been punitive except that his mouth was at your shoulder the whole time, his lips and teeth at your skin, breathing you in even as he arranged you exactly where he wanted you. He was muttering something against your skin. You caught fragments of impossible woman, you impossible—, and the warmth of it moved through you like sunlight.
"Insufferable," he said, against the back of your neck. His weight settled over you. "You are entirely—" His mouth dragged down your spine. "—insufferable." You heard how he worked at the laces of his breeches.
"You love me," you said into the pillow.
His hands went under your stomach and pulled your body upwards with a force that added weight to the already existing heat that had claimed your insides long ago. His mouth kept descending down your back and paused at the roundness of your ass, a hand resting on one of your meaty cheeks, his mouth on the other, and he bit down. Hard. Clearly intending to leave a mark that mirrored the one that, he was suspecting, was already appearing on his neck.
The sound you let out was somewhere between a yelp and a moan. He kissed the marred skin and traced his tongue over the indentation of his teeth.
"Love does not begin to cover what I feel for you," he finally said. Quiet. Certain. The same way he said everything that actually mattered — without decoration, without performance, because it did not require either. Your stomach flipped again.
He pushed into you.
Not all at once — he was too deliberate for that, too aware of himself even now — but in a slow, inexorable press that did not stop until he was fully seated, until there was nowhere left to go, and the sound you made at the stretch of it was something you would not have made for anyone else in the world. He felt enormous. He always did, at this angle, on all fours with your hands in the sheets and his weight behind you, and the completeness of it — the specific, overwhelming fullness — dragged a second sound out of you before you had finished making the first.
He held you there. His forehead dropped to the back of your neck. His breath came out in a long, fractured exhale against your skin, and you felt his chest expand and contract as he took in the scent of you surrounding him on all sides — your hair, your skin, the heat of your cunt gripping him — and whatever composure he had left was simply gone, burned through, and what remained was just the man.
Just Ormund. The one who lived underneath all that magnificent discipline.
"Fuck," he murmured. Low and private. Not for you — or not only for you — but for himself, for whatever part of him was still capable of language. "You feel—" He stopped. Tried again, his voice rough at every edge. "You feel like — every single time — like—" He could not finish it. He had run out of words, which almost never happened, and you felt obscurely triumphant about it even now, even like this.
Then he moved, and finishing thoughts aloud became temporarily impossible for either of you.
He was not gentle and you did not want him to be. He set a pace that was deep and relentless from the first stroke, his cock driving into you with a force that rocked you forward and would have shifted you entirely if his hands had not held you exactly where he wanted you — anchored, immovable, taking everything he gave. You felt every inch of him on every withdrawal, felt the drag of it and then the full, devastating push back in, and the sound of it was wet and rhythmic and obscene in the quiet of the room and neither of you cared.
His mouth found your shoulder. Your nape. He was breathing you in between thrusts, his nose dragging across your skin between each forward drive of his hips as though he needed it, as though the scent of you was what was keeping him moving.
"Look at you," he said at your ear, rough and low, his hips snapping forward as he said it. "Look at what you do." Another thrust, harder, and your hands fisted in the sheets. "Every time. Every gods-damned time I push into you and you—" He broke off. His jaw pressed against your temple. "You take me so well. You always— you were made for this." The words were not pretty. They were not meant to be. They were true in the way that only the most unguarded things are true — stripped of performance, stripped of everything except the wanting underneath. "My extraordinary, infuriating—" He mouthed at your throat, teeth grazing. "—beautiful—" A thrust that punched the breath out of you. "—utterly loyal wife."
The word loyal in his mouth did something to you that had nothing to do with the fucking, and everything to do with it. Because you knew what it meant to him. You had always known.
His hands slid from your hips to your shoulders. The change in grip was the only warning. He pulled you back into each thrust now, using the leverage of your shoulders to drive himself deeper still, and the cry that came out of your sore throat was not dignified and you did not care, because the angle was devastating and he knew it and he did not stop, just kept pulling you back against him with that controlled, purposeful force, his cock seated so deep on each stroke that thinking became a thing that happened to other people, not to you.
"Ormund—" you cried out again.
"I know," he said — and then, lower, his mouth at your ear, "You're mine. Say it."
"Yours," you told him, breathless.
The sound he made was not civilized.
Before you could process it, he pulled you upright, your back against his chest, his arm coming across your collarbones and your stomach. Something that felt more intimate and more absolute: a claim. His forearm against your sternum, your back flush against him from shoulder to hip, his cock pushing back into you from this new angle while his other hand splayed flat across your stomach and held you against him.
You could not move. Not meaningfully. You were entirely encompassed by him — his arm, his chest, his hips — and the position meant every thrust drove up into you rather than forward, a different depth entirely, and the noise you made the first time he rolled his hips like that was something you had no word for.
"There," he said against your temple. His voice had gone very quiet. Frayed at every seam. "You are so beautiful like this."
He fucked you like that — slow, now, deep, with a grinding deliberateness that was somehow worse than the pace before, because it gave you nothing to brace against, nothing to do but feel every movement and listen to him come undone against your neck. His arm tightened across your chest. His face pressed into your hair and stayed there, nose buried in it, breathing you in on every stroke like you were the only thing he had left to hold onto.
"You ruin me," he said, muffled in your hair. "Do you know that. You have always—" A grunt, pulled from somewhere that had nothing to do with composure. "—always ruined me. Before I even touch you. The smell of you. The—" Another thrust, and his sentence dissolved. "I think about this. Every hour I am away from you I think about this. About being inside you. About how you—" He stopped again. His rhythm was losing its deliberateness now, becoming something more honest and more urgent. "I cannot think about anything else when I am in you. There is nothing else. There is only—"
He moaned your name. It came out like something torn loose from him, and then again, lower, as his rhythm stuttered and drove deep and his hand on your stomach pulled you hard against him and held you there.
He drove into you and stayed.
His whole body shuddered — not once but in waves, his hips rocking in short grinding pulses, and his hand on your stomach slid down, finding you where you were joined, his fingers pressing against your clit with the same remorseless precision he had used earlier — not asking, not teasing, simply applying himself to the problem of you with the focused efficiency that characterised everything he did.
"Come for me, my love," he said against your neck. Rough. Certain. Not a request. "I want to feel you coming undone around my cock."
The orgasm did not build so much as detonate — sudden and total, your whole body clenching around him, and the sound you made was his name broken in half, and he groaned at the feel of you tightening on his cock, a low continuous sound like something structural giving way. His fingers did not stop. He worked you through every tremour, his hips stuttering forward in short desperate pulses as your body gripped him, and the combination of it — his hand, his cock, the arm across your chest holding you immovable against him while you came apart — was so complete, so inescapable, that there was nothing to do but take it and make sounds you would not think about later.
He followed you over the edge with very little left between him and ruin.
He spent himself fucking it into you with an intent that was indistinguishable from marking, from claiming, from the deep wordless insistence that you were his and he was here and this was something that could not be undone. The groan that tore out of him was enormous and private and pressed into your hair, muffled there, just for you and for this room and for no one else in the world.
His arm did not loosen. If anything it tightened, pulling you closer still against his chest, his lips finding the side of your neck as the last of it moved through him. He was still rocking into you, slowly now, working through every wave with those long unhurried strokes, like he refused to be finished, like the idea of withdrawing was something he was simply not prepared to accept yet.
He went still at last. His arm stayed where it was. Your own hands started caressing his forearms, the one across your chest and the one that connected him to your core. Your nails dragged paths along his warm skin, and he groaned contently against your neck, pressing kisses across your pulse.
After you regained your breaths, you pulled him with you to the pillows of the bed. You shifted before he could settle into stillness. Turned, repositioned, until you were facing him — chest to chest, your face level with his in the dark. He let you arrange this without comment, which was its own kind of accommodation from a man who did not usually cede the arrangement of things.
For a moment you just looked at each other.
His hair was disheveled. You had done that. His throat bore the faint mark of your teeth, just below his ear, already beginning to colour. You had done that too, and you felt no remorse about it. If anything, the sight of it did something warm and territorial to your chest.
His eyes moved over your face in that way of his — cataloguing, reading, finding the things you had not said.
Your hand found his chest. Pressed flat against it. Found his heartbeat. You were not aware, exactly, of deciding to do it. Your hand simply went there, the way it always did, the way it had done for years, because this was where you put your hand when you wanted to know he was real and present and still here. Ormund's heartbeat under your palm. Evidence.
You felt him look at you. "You are counting," he mentioned, quietly.
"I am not."
"You are." He did not say it as an accusation. His voice was very low, very even, the way it got when he was being careful with you. Which he rarely needed to be. "You only do that when something worries you."
You did not answer. Your hand stayed where it was.
He watched you for a long moment. In the low, guttered light his face was open in the way it only ever was here — unguarded exactly in the way he only allowed himself to be in your presence.
Then his hand came up and covered yours. Over his own heart.
"It's still beating," he said.
"I know that," you said, a little sharply.
"It will keep beating," the faintest shift at the corner of his mouth. "You needn't worry."
Your jaw tightened. You were not a woman who wept. You had not wept since childhood, more or less, had trained yourself out of it the way you had trained yourself out of many things that felt like weakness in the world you both moved through. But there was something pressing at the back of your throat tonight that was not tears exactly and was not nothing either, and Ormund could see it, because Ormund could always see it, and the fact that he was not saying anything about it was the kindest thing he could possibly have done.
Your fingers laced through his over his chest. He looked down at your hand. Back up at your face.
Something crossed his expression then — something that had no name in the ledger of his usual emotional vocabulary. Something softer than respect and less contained than love and entirely, devastatingly real. He had looked at you this way before. In the Sept, on your wedding day, when you spoke your vows without faltering, your voice clear and sure while half the assembled nobility waited for a girl too young and too bright to stumble. You had not stumbled. He had looked at you then the way he was looking at you now.
Like he could not account for you. Like you were, to him, a continued astonishment.
His thumb moved over your knuckles. Slow. Back and forth.
"How," he said, very quietly, almost to himself, "does something as tender as you—" He stopped. His eyes moved over your face again. The line between his brows, the one that appeared when he was genuinely puzzling over something. "You should have no interest in me whatsoever. You know that."
"You've said so before."
"It bears repeating." But there was no real bewilderment in it. There was wonder. There was the particular reverence of a man who had stopped trying to explain a thing and had simply begun to be grateful for it. "I am—" He considered his words, which he always did, which you had always loved. "I am not an easy man."
"No," you agreed.
"I am not warm."
"Not often."
"I am demanding, and frequently preoccupied, and I have been told I make people feel they are being quietly assessed at all times."
"You do," you confirmed. "It's very unnerving. I find it attractive."
The almost-laugh again. That soundless shift in his chest beneath your hand.
"You are deranged," he chuckled.
"Probably," you slightly shrugged and looked at his eyes. "But only because you drive me so."
He was quiet for a moment. His thumb had not stopped moving across your knuckles. Outside, somewhere in the walls of the High Tower, the building breathed the way old things breathed — settling stone, distant sea of the Whispering Sound, the hush of very late night. Tomorrow, he would be sleeping in a tent somewhere on the road north, and you would be in this bed alone, and your hand would find the pillow he slept on without you asking it to.
You already knew this. You were not afraid of it. But your fingers gripped his harder, and you did not let go.
He noticed. He looked at your hand and then at your face and the expression there was the one he saved for the Sept — for the moments of genuine private devotion that he would rather have died than perform in public. You had seen him pray. Not the performed public piety of a lord of the Reach, but the real thing, quiet and serious and meant. He prayed like a man paying a debt he considered himself lucky to owe.
He looked at you like that now.
"I thank the Father every morning," he said. Quietly. "That it was you." His eyes did not leave yours. "That I got you. Of all the outcomes — of all the matches that were possible, all the women I might have married—" He stopped. Shook his head slightly. "I thank Him. Every day. That I was given the sense to choose well. To choose you."
Your throat was doing the thing again.
"You chose me for political reasons," you said, because one of you had to say something manageable.
"Initially," he allowed. "And then I met you." The thumb again, across your knuckles. "And I thanked every one of the Seven individually ever since."
You looked at him. He looked back. The candles were nearly out now, just the last of the embers in the grate casting the room in deep amber, and in that light he looked like something that had always existed, something permanent, something that was here before you and would be— You stopped that thought where it started.
He would come back. You knew he would. You had never doubted it, not in the marrow of yourself, not where it counted.
His arm came around you. Pulled you in, fully, your face against his throat, his face in your hair, and he held you there with the same certainty with which he did everything — like he had made a decision and the decision was this, you, here — and you felt him breathe you in one more time, slow and deep.
"Sleep," he said against the crown of your head.
You closed your eyes and you slept.
In the morning you found him before the dawn had fully decided what it wanted to be.
The sept of the High Tower was old — older than most of the tower itself, the stones worn smooth by centuries of Hightower knees on the floor, Hightower hands folded in petition, Hightower voices lifted in the particular quiet language of people who believed they were being heard. You had always loved it at this hour. The candles lit for the night vigil still burning, the coloured glass beginning to catch the first grey suggestion of morning, the smell of incense and cold stone and beeswax that meant, to you, something foundational. Something that did not change.
Ormund was already there.
He was kneeling before the Father — of course he was, it would always be the Father first for him, the judge, the lawgiver, the one who weighed the scales of men — and he did not hear you enter, or if he did he did not turn, because this was not a place where he performed attention. His head was slightly bowed. His hands were folded before him with a precision that was not stiffness but intention. Even in prayer he was utterly himself.
He was already in his armour.
You had known he would be. Ormund would not have come to the sept on the morning of his departure in anything less — not from pride, but from the same instinct that governed everything he did: a man should meet the Gods as he would meet any lord of consequence. With preparation. With respect. With the acknowledgment that some audiences demanded your best.
The armour was extraordinary. You had seen it before — had watched it being fitted, had run your hands across the worked surface of it in the armory with a proprietary satisfaction you did not bother to conceal — but it struck you again now, in the candlelight, in the hush of this old room.
It was Hightower armour in the truest sense. Not showy, not theatrical, nothing like the Valyrian steel theatrics of the Targaryens. But beautiful in the way that serious, carefully made things were beautiful. The lines of it followed the lines of him. It had been made for his particular dimensions, his breadth of shoulder, the specific geometry of a man built for exactly this.
He looked like something out of a song, kneeling there. Like something meant to last.
You crossed the floor quietly. Took your place beside him — not behind him, not at a deferential distance, but beside, because that was where you had always been — and you knelt on the worn stone and folded your own hands and turned your face to the Father.
You felt Ormund register your presence. Not by any sound or movement, but by a subtle shift in the quality of the air beside you. The way stillness changed when someone was no longer alone in it.
You began to pray.
Not aloud. You never prayed aloud except in the formal liturgies, because real prayer, the kind that meant something, was a private exchange. You spoke to the Father first, because Ormund was here and this was his patron and it felt right to begin where he had begun. You asked for his victory. Not in the way of desperate petitioning, not with the grasping quality of fear, but with the steady directness you brought to all serious requests. He is a good man and a just lord and he goes to fight for a rightful king. See him through it. Allow him to come home to me.
Then you turned, internally, to the Mother.
The Mother you had always found the easiest to speak to. Not because you were soft — you were not, and she was not either, not really, not if you read her honestly — but because the Mother's mercy was not weakness. It was the understanding that men who went to war were still made of the same flesh as the children they once were, that even the strongest armour had a seam, and that the space between competence and survival sometimes came down to grace rather than planning.
Mercy, you asked her. Not for me. For him. Whatever comes — show him your mercy.
You did not know how long you knelt there. The morning light shifted through the coloured glass, slow and incremental, and the candles guttered in a draft from somewhere, and the sept breathed around you with the deep patience of old sacred spaces.
You rose together. The way you did most things. He turned to look at you, and stopped.
You had not dressed formally. There had been no one to put your hair up at that hour, and besides, you had not wanted to — some instinct had kept you from it, had made you shake your hair loose down your back before you came to find him, long against your simple gown, the early light catching it as it caught the glass. You saw him take it in. Saw his eyes move over you in the way they did — that slow, full attention — and something in his armoured stillness shifted. Not broke. Just — shifted.
"You look," he said, and then stopped himself. "Like something that should be written with the best of inks," he said. "And sung at every gathering."
You looked at him. The armour. The candlelight. The worn stones of a sept that had held his family's prayers for three hundred years.
"So do you," you told him.
He was quiet for a moment. His eyes were on your face with that quality of attention that, after all those years, still did something to the centre of your chest. Like being stood in direct sunlight. Like being the fixed point a very serious navigator had chosen to reckon from.
"I wish to tell you something," he said, and your attentive silence was cue enough for him.
He looked at you. He breathed in once, slow, the way he did when he was not buying time but simply ensuring that what he said next would be exact. Ormund did not speak imprecisely about things that mattered.
He took your hands in his. "I love you."
Three words from another man might have been ordinary. From Ormund Hightower, standing in his armour in the sept of his ancestors on the morning he went to war, they landed like something structural. Like a cornerstone being set.
"I know you do," you said softly.
"I know you know." His jaw moved. "I am telling you anyway. Because I want it said. Here, in this room, in front of—" he gestured, briefly, at the figures of the Seven around you. "I want it witnessed by the same that granted me such happiness."
You did not speak. He continued.
"I have been many things in my life," he explained. "I have tried to be a just lord. A capable commander. A faithful son of the Seven. I have tried to serve this city and this house with everything I am." His eyes did not leave yours. "But there is nothing — nothing I have done or been or built — that I value as I value this union. This marriage." His voice, that measured, precise voice, was very quiet now. "You."
The morning light was coming fully now, amber and rose through the old glass, falling across the floor between you in long coloured bars, and you were standing in it, your hair loose, and he was standing in his armour, and the sept around you was silent and old and full.
"I go to war for a right cause," he said. "I go because it is right. Because Aegon is ours and Rhaenyra is not and the realm requires men willing to stand for what is true regardless of cost." The certainty in it was absolute. You had always loved that about him — the way he held convictions the same way he held everything else, with both hands, without flinching. "I believe in what we fight for. You know I do."
"I do," you nodded.
"But when I ride out this morning—" He stopped. Something passed through his face, brief and real. "When I ride out, it will not be the rightness of the cause I carry. Not first." His eyes were on yours. "It will be you. It is always you. You are the light I ride toward, every time I have ever ridden away from this tower. You are what makes Oldtown worth defending. What makes any of it—" He stopped again. "You are my beacon," he said, simply. "You have always been my beacon."
Your throat did the thing. You let it.
"Ormund," you said.
"I wish—" He exhaled. "I wish for nothing more than to come back to you. To walk through that gate and find you exactly as you are now, or arguing with the steward, or bent over your accounts with that expression you get when the numbers displease you." His mouth moved upwards. "I wish for nothing more than to hold you again. In this sept. In our bed. Anywhere."
When he finished speaking you rose onto your toes and put your arms around him.
It required a small adjustment — the armour added width and edge to the shape of him you knew by heart, and you had to find the angles of it, the places where you could hold on properly — but you did, your arms around his neck and your face against his jaw, and for a moment he did not move. Just stood there, solid and present, absorbing the fact of you against him.
Then his arms came around you.
Not gently. With the full weight of everything the morning meant — his departure, the road ahead, the particular quality of a man who did not know how to hold something halfway — and you felt it in the way his armour pressed against your chest and his face dropped to the crook of your neck. He breathed you in there, slow and deliberate, the way he always did, except that this time it had an urgency underneath it, a need beneath the control, the wanting of a man who was already thinking about how long it would be before he could do this again.
You held each other in the old quiet of the sept. Then he drew back. Not far. Just enough to find your face with his hands, to tip your chin toward him.
He kissed you.
You knew his kisses. You had catalogued them over years the way he catalogued everything — thoroughly, without meaning to, until the knowledge was simply part of you. The chaste press of his mouth when in public, perfectly correct, revealing nothing. The ones in bed that were not kisses so much as declarations, warm and consuming and entirely without restraint. The particular kiss he used when you were winning an argument — sudden and deliberate, his mouth on yours cutting off whatever point you had been making, and the infuriating thing was that it always worked.
This was none of those.
This was slower than the ones in bed and deeper than the ones in court and it had none of the strategic quality of the argument kisses. It had no strategy at all. It was simply Ormund, his hands steady on your face and his mouth on yours, and the thing it contained was not passion exactly and not tenderness exactly but something that lived beneath both of those — the full, unguarded weight of a man who did not say everything he felt and had chosen, here, in this room, in front of the Gods, to say it this way instead.
You kissed him back and did not try to name it. Some things did not need naming. Some things only needed to be held, and you held it for a long time.
When he drew back, his thumbs moved once across your cheekbones. He looked at you. You looked at him.
You reached into the neckline of your gown.
The cloth you produced was simple — a small square of linen, nothing remarkable to look at, the kind of thing that would have meant nothing to anyone else in the world. It had been sitting against your skin since you dressed, warm from your body, and you had said nothing about it until now because you had wanted it to hold you as long as possible before you gave it away.
You held it out to him.
He looked at it. Looked at you. Something moved through his careful composure the way light moves through water — distorting everything underneath for just a moment before the surface stilled again. He understood immediately. He had always understood you immediately.
He took it from your hand and brought it to his mouth.
His eyes stayed on yours as he did it — steady, deliberate, holding your gaze with that unwavering attention of his while he pressed the linen to his lips and breathed in, slow and deep, and the look in his eyes as he did it was so naked and so entirely his — not soft, not tender, but devoted, utterly and completely devoted, the way he was devoted to the Seven and to this house and to the idea of things that were worth protecting — that you had to work to hold his gaze and you did, because you were his equal in this as in everything, and you did not look away.
He lowered it from his mouth. He reached into his sleeve and tucked it there, safely, close against his wrist. Pressed it flat with two fingers to be certain of it.
Then he looked at you one last time.
"Go," you told him, before either of you could make this harder than it already was. "And come back to me not as a corpse, Ormund Hightower."
He looked at you for a long moment. His thumb moved once more across your cheekbone.
"I have every intention," he said quietly, "of dying an old man. In my own bed. With you beside me." The faintest pause. "Everything else can wait."
Then he kissed you one last time.
It was not slow. It was not careful. It was the kiss of a man with a march ahead of him and a war to fight and a wife he intended to return to, and it pressed you back almost imperceptibly on your feet, his mouth hard on yours, his hands framing your face with a grip that was just short of desperate — Ormund Hightower's version of desperate, which looked like certainty in anyone else. He kissed you the way he had held you in the dark, the way he had breathed you in all night, with the full unguarded force of everything he was, and for a moment it felt less like a goodbye than like an attempt to take you with him the only way he could. To press the shape of you into himself so completely that no amount of distance could undo it.
Then he let you go and he went.
The sept held you in its old quiet. The coloured light fell across the floor in long bars of amber and rose. The candles burned low. Outside, somewhere beyond the stones of the High Tower, you heard the sound of horses, of men assembling, of a world — your world — preparing to move.
You stood in the silence he had left behind and you did not weep. You turned back to the Mother, and you folded your hands, and you thanked her in advance.
He would come back.
You had never doubted it.
A.N.: I am afraid some parts may be OOC for Ormund, and I apologise for it in advance. This has been kind of a writing-trusting exercise for me, as I have not been able to fully study his character from the show with just a single chapter). Also, as this is a House of the Dragon fic and not part of my usual AKOTSK work, I was a bit hesitant as to use the usual taglist. I finally decided to tag everyone just in case (if you don't want to be tagged in upcoming HOTD fics, just let me know). Also, this has been proofread just once, so expect some possible mistakes here and there.
summary: you watched your husband and son train, and you couldn't help but feel your heart ache with longing. your firstborn was already holding a sword so firmly, and you missed the time when he was just a helpless little bundle with rosy cheeks. you had always dreamed of a daughter, and so had ormund. but lately, the thought had become too persistent. do those who pray well to the gods get what they desire? or do those who pray well to their husbands get what they desire?
word count: 3.2k
tropes: married couple ⋆ established relationship ⋆ soft dom husband
warnings: 18+ audiences only ⋆ smut ⋆ breeding kink ⋆ oral sex (fem .ᐟ receiving) ⋆ p in v ⋆ unprotected sex ⋆ creampie
a/n: i'm addicted to ormund hightower, and also to the idea of him and his wife having a breeding kink. the reader is ormund's first wife, and honestly it's a little sad to know that the fourth pregnancy of lady hightower ended badly... but let's not think about that for now
You were still clutching the skirts of your dress, caught in some strange state. Your fingers gripped the fabric with desperate intent. Unspoken words froze on your lips. Your maid looked at you with the most timid gaze, like a sacrificial lamb.
"M'lady, is everything alright? You don't like the dress? You're staring at it so strangely..."
She timidly handed you a small mirror of polished brass. The girl smiled encouragingly.
"Look how pretty you are!"
Though the maid was visibly flustered, melting before her mistress, she still insisted on her words. Her voice trembled, but the conviction with which she mumbled her praise could not help but stir gratitude in you. You smiled at your reflection in the metal surface.
"Our Lord Hightower is smitten with you," the girl declared, her cheeks flushing.
You nodded slightly, knowing perfectly well that your husband found you dazzling whether you were in a dress or not. The second option was probably far more preferable to him.
You sighed again, barely hiding the slight frustration that had taken hold of your thoughts. Your maid fussed around you, adjusting the sleeves of your emerald-colored gown. Mentally, you kept returning to the image of your husband gripping his sword tightly. Ormund looked so resolute and proud as he watched your firstborn deftly dodge his strikes. Your son beamed just as brightly. He looked like a polished knight's helmet. Fortunately, he was still too young to wield a real dangerous and sharp weapon, but Lyonel was no longer the little boy who trustingly pressed against your side, seeking protection from something he didn't understand. You missed those times when his cheeks were still plump and pink like roses from the bushes. He was your tiny baby, following you everywhere and flinching at the sudden sound of a bird taking flight. Now Lyonel no longer needed your care as fully as before. At his age, he already considered himself grown, or at least approaching adulthood. Young Hightower probably had no idea how deeply he wounded his mother's heart when he dismissively waved off your advice. Now he clung to his father more and more, eagerly questioning him about the burdens of being head of the house. Your other two boys were also growing rapidly. It had been a long time since any of your children with Ormund had knocked on the heavy doors of your chambers in the dead of night. No one jumped into the parental bed, trembling and occasionally feigning fear, swearing about a monster they'd encountered under the bed. Martyn now considered it his duty to tease his younger brother for his cowardly complaints, and Garmund would impatiently lunge at him with his still-fragile little fists, almost growling with frustration. Now their squabbles occupied them endlessly. Garmund would catch his brother's gaze and lower his blue eyes in shame. Your gut told you that your youngest was torn between the need for maternal tenderness and the need for brotherly acceptance. When he so sweetly asked you to sing his favorite lullaby, you could barely hold back tears of emotion. For you, each of them, your three troublemakers, was still a baby, even with newfound ambitions worthy of their father's character.
But on the other hand, when you recently, in the heat of play, scooped up your two youngest sons, you felt that those little bundles with wrinkled faces had changed. They were so sturdy and heavy. Gods, those boys seemed to be filled with cast iron. All three took after their father in the most shameless way, inheriting all his features. No matter how hard you tried, you couldn't spot even a trace of yourself in them. Little copies of Ormund Hightower. It sometimes made you uneasy how your eldest smiled at the master-at-arms' daughter. Lyonel had inherited his father's charm and used it expertly, it was unclear when and where he had acquired this experience.
So absurdly, you had recently prayed to the gods that your eldest son would be obedient and steady, that his head would be cold as ice, and that no frivolous thoughts would cloud his heart. The way he made eyes at that awkward girl did not let you rest. Then you prayed to the gods for the well-being of your husband and your other sons, and lastly, you left one final cherished wish. Fervently, tenderly, you begged the Seven to grant your house a little Lady Hightower, your daughter. Perhaps a little vanity had taken hold of you when you thought about stroking the silky hair of your little angel, whose curls would be exactly like yours.
Your thoughts were interrupted when the maid, with some apprehension, shook your shoulder. She always seemed a little afraid of you for some reason. There was no clear reason for it, but it didn't bother you much. She performed her duties well, almost nimbly.
"M'lady, are you unwell? You seem like a different person."
You smiled reservedly, touching your heavy earrings attached to your earlobes. Your husband never stinted when it came to jewelry. You, in turn, considered it a great honor to wear his gleaming gifts every day.
"I feel wonderful, I just got lost in thought about a few things."
The maid straightened up, burning with curiosity, but her lips were tightly sealed, as if any careless word could cost her her head.
"But it's none of your concern," you added sternly and quickly. "Better bring me that new nightgown of mine."
The girl was first confused and looked at you as if you were mad, since she had just fully dressed you, preparing you for the promised walk. The sly squint of your eye said much more.
"I need a private meeting with Lord Hightower," you licked your soft lips, mentally encouraging yourself to carry out your cunning plan. "Now don't just stand there. And bring the jasmine oil."
Your fingers were already buried in your hair, untangling the knots with newfound agility. You sincerely and fiercely wanted to get what you desired, and that pushed you to decisive action. Your husband might call it strategy, and it was. You knew perfectly well that he loved that scent, enveloping your body in the sweetest embrace, making Ormund openly want to devour you.
A little temptation, a little negotiation, and a little fulfillment of a cherished desire. The plan you had conceived was crystal clear and simple, and you had no doubt that Lord Hightower's restraint would burst the moment he found you in that silk nightgown with a little bow on your chest. You looked like a promised gift, which Ormund would unwrap without delay and perhaps without proper tenderness.
The maid closed the door behind her, wearing an understanding and supportive smile on her face, but you didn't need her blessing. You knew perfectly well the power you possessed. Your husband went weak in the knees simply because you smiled.
A few days ago, you had asked to be given separate chambers from Ormund. You had argued not too seriously, but perhaps a bit of drama guided you when you gave that capricious order. For a few days, both your bed and his had remained empty. Only stubbornness kept you from speaking again. You had even planned your walks so as not to witness their training, but then you secretly watched the whole scene from the window of your cold chambers.
You glided through the castle corridors as if floating on a glass lake, your nightgown billowing behind you. Some would have called you a vengeful ghost. Such was your determined gaze. Others, the most charming swan, because it was hard to look away. You moved swiftly, unable to avoid the cold biting your bare feet.
Your hands gripped the forged rings firmly attached to the wooden door, reaching up to the ceiling. You snorted in annoyance. You didn't quite like that the doors didn't open on their own. And frankly, you were a little angry at your husband for not being the first to visit your chambers.
What you saw stole your breath away. Ormund lay in a copper bath, bathed in morning light, sprawled out like a lion in the sun. A servant poured water over his tired, knotted shoulders with a ladle. Your husband didn't even raise an eyebrow when he saw you at the threshold, your chest heaving and your eyes burning dangerously. Lord Hightower barely smiled with the corner of his lips and closed his eyes, as if silently saying, "I knew you'd come." The servant, in turn, dropped everything. The rough sponge fell to the floor as the man bent into a frightened bow.
"Get out," you snapped impatiently, hastily covering your chest with your palms.
Only now did you realize how absurd your plan was, one that in no way included this poor servant. You nearly pressed yourself against the wall by the door, watching him hurriedly retreat from your chambers faster than the wind.
Ormund chuckled quietly, deeply, as if pouring velvet. He rubbed the bridge of his nose with a tired but satisfied look.
"If you wanted a memorable entrance, I can guarantee our servant will never forget it."
He turned his gaze to you, slowly, leisurely, his eyes traveling over your body. His tongue darted out slightly, moistening his lower lip. When he waved his hand, rebellious drops of water fell straight onto the stone floor, creating a tinkling melody.
"But I would kindly ask you, on your next visit, to spare the poor man's heart, for the neckline of your very innocent nightgown carries utter ruin, my dear wife."
Ormund laughed again, this time louder, his laughter echoing off the walls of the room. Pulling your hands away from your chest, you clenched them tightly into fists.
"If there's something to show, why hide it?" you thrust your chest out proudly.
You stepped carefully on the stone, returning a detached expression to your face. You deliberately swayed your hips, knowing this mischief would have an effect on Ormund and wipe that insolent smile off his face. Your hand touched the strap of your silk nightgown, letting it fall gently, as if the wind had licked the fabric, shifting it a few inches. Your garment was already semi-transparent and left nothing to the imagination, every curve was clearly defined. The circles of your nipples peeked playfully, hardened from the cold.
His face soon changed. His wet fingers gripped the edges of the copper bath. Lord Hightower's jaw tightened with tension. Inside, you rejoiced as you spotted that familiar, unrestrained, hungry look. You knew you didn't need much, just to fan the fire a little more so it would blaze intensely.
You brushed the second strap aside, so the nightgown hung at your hips, but then coyly covered your bare chest with your hands.
"Or should I hide it?"
Ormund swallowed audibly, already ready to curse you and your damn games.
"Why hide what belongs to your husband?" he rasped impatiently, his hands already reaching for you, his whole body tensing and rising to meet you.
Drops of water raced down his torso too beautifully and slowly, capitulating as they fell. Your eyes gleamed with desire, no less than Ormund's.
"Come here," he said with authority in his voice, but seeing you back away slightly at the command, he softened. "Please, my love."
You chuckled softly. He always obeyed, without question, whispering his "pleases" like a puppy. But as soon as you were close enough to be caught, his demeanor ceased to seem at all pitiable. Ormund pulled your hands away from your chest demandingly, hungrily. Without a moment's hesitation, his large, hot palms covered your breasts and squeezed them firmly. He rubbed your nipples with his thumbs and index fingers, teasing cruelly. His hands felt so masculine, slightly rough from holding not just your soft female body but also rough steel.
Your moan was a loud, mewling sound when he caught your pearl-hard nipple with his lips. His hot tongue traced the bud, playing with it. You grabbed his head, pressing him to you imperiously. He tended to each of your breasts carefully, kneading them and biting the tender skin, reminding you who you belonged to and how unbearably desirable you were in your games.
His hand made its way, roughly pulling down the nightgown. The luxurious garment let out a pitiful squeak, tearing slightly, already clearly unwearable for the wife of Lord Hightower. Ormund wrapped his arm around your waist tightly and lifted you off the ground effortlessly, even though he himself was sitting in that damn bath, smelling of some kind of pine. You squealed and panicked, grabbing his shoulders, but very quickly the room was filled with a different sound, one that treacherously escaped your lips.
Ormund kissed your pussy with his open mouth, wetly and greedily. He couldn't wait any longer. You exuded that sweet scent, teasing him to his limit. He licked your folds with such pleasure painted on his face. His tongue became flexible and firm as it circled your clit and struck it, making you push into his face. The water in the bath sloshed, creating stormy waves in the copper giant. You called his name, not knowing what you expected from your husband, who consumed you with such appetite. Your heart pounded painfully against your ribs from the flood of emotions this intimacy in the narrow bath, certainly not designed for two, gave you. Your thighs trembled with a humiliating ache. Your knees barely held you up. This position was not comfortable at all, as you stood slightly bent over, while your husband looked like a feasting man, submerged in warm scented water.
Ormund's fingers plunged into your dripping pussy, curling inside you, stealing the most obscene, unrestrained sounds from your mouth. Your lashes were wet with the strain of the orgasm that was so close. You were ready to scream his name when he pulled away abruptly and lifted his head to look at your face.
Lord Hightower shamelessly licked your moisture from his lips. His chin still glistened, not letting you forget the intimacy so ruthlessly interrupted.
"Should I continue, or have the kitten's knees gotten tired?"
You wanted to hit him, but all your limbs were trembling and weak as rags. The next thing you wanted was to scratch his face, to paint red, stinging lines across it to remind him how unkind it was to anger your mistress. But you did none of those things and simply sank slowly into the water. Your hair clung to your neck and the back of your head, your cheeks burned with nervous excitement.
"I want a child," you blurted out, frustration settling all over your face. "A girl who will trust all her secrets only to me, her mother."
You pushed his chest with your foot, not hard, or perhaps Ormund simply didn't show it.
"I'm tired of begging the gods for a child."
Lord Hightower ran his fingers along the rib of your foot, sliding it off his body elegantly but gently.
"My love. The gods are merciful, but I think we don't need their blessing. We do just fine together."
Ormund smiled slyly before standing up. The water rushed away from his body in protest. His muscles were solid, firm, as if carved from marble. They rolled under your hungry gaze.
He didn't cover himself, and it would be a ridiculous lie to say that his erect cock wasn't noticeable. The head glistened, and his entire flesh seemed to ache, demanding to be wrapped around your soft body.
Ormund climbed out of the bath languidly, not even bothering to dry off. He offered you his hand like a gentleman, as if he hadn't villainously robbed you of your orgasm a few minutes ago. Your nightgown lay orphaned on the floor, hardly resembling its former seduction. Drops falling from your husband's body landed right on the silk. You looked at that garment and thought that his defiance had defeated your cunning.
Defeated, you offered your hand. Your husband helped you escape the copper bath, dragging you along. You collapsed onto the bed heavily. The fabric clung to wet skin, but that was nothing compared to how your bodies clung to each other. All grievances drowned the moment your lips met in greedy, unending kisses. You bit his lips as he kneaded your skin with his fingers. Your thighs hooked around his waist desperately as he guided his cock, running it through your still-sticky folds. He gathered the moisture that seeped from your desire.
"Do you want this? A child?" Ormund asked softly, touching your lower lip with his thumb, pulling it back slightly.
You whimpered and nodded, rubbing your thighs against his groin, making him hiss from the restraint that overflowed.
"Wouldn't a good husband do this for his sweet wife?" he whispered, wetly kissing your temple.
Lord Hightower couldn't wait another moment. He pushed into you softly before filling your greedy cunt gradually, almost tenderly. You gasped, moving sharply to meet his hips.
"Are you a good husband?" you asked in a strained voice, biting his earlobe.
"If coming in my wife's pussy makes me a good husband, then I suppose yes," he growled, thrusting deep into you.
You clung to him helplessly, surrendering to the passion of his movements, and couldn't tear yourself away from your husband's lips, whispering sweetly and tearfully.
"Then do it. I want this. I want this."
It was hard to describe your state when the peak hit you so suddenly, roughly, taking all your strength. You clenched all over, unable to let go of your husband. Your pussy spasmed, contracting around his cock.
Ormund stopped, but only for a moment, looking into your eyes, his palm stroking your cheek tenderly, caringly. His hips slapped against yours with less force. His movements took on a softer, more loving tone.
You buried your face in the curve of his neck, feeling him come deep inside your pussy, spilling hotly. His breath tickled you as his lips touched your ear.
"There's nothing more pleasant than coming in a wife who begs so sweetly."
Ormund didn't pull out right away, and you both savored the aftertaste of your love, the warmth that spread through your body, or rather, in the pit of your stomach.
"We'll keep trying. One attempt is probably not enough, my love," he whispered with a soft laugh, stroking your lips with his. "And you should come back to our bed. I get a little lonely without my sweet wife and her sweet outfits."
You hugged him as tightly as you could, forcing your husband to press you down with his not-inconsiderable weight. You didn't want him to leave, and you couldn't stop thinking about how intimate you were right now. His cock was slowly softening, and his seed trickled down the inside of your thigh. But in the end, he rolled off, still afraid of simply breaking you. Ormund's palm spread across your still-empty belly. His fingers traced small circles. And something inside you told you that your desire had been fulfilled.
taglist: @lustedbby @pinkdoeweirdo @userhotd @rottenbites @ghostlybfgf @rhaenyras-crown @risingraisin @icebearcucumber @baskettis @senatorpadmeamidala if you want to be tagged, let me know .ᐟ
Ormund Hightower who reluctantly takes his wife with him when the Hightower army marches towards Kings Landing because he cannot bear to be apart from her and she cannot stand knowing that he is leaving for battle and might not come back.
Ormund Hightower that keeps his wife’s handkerchief tucked into his armor and pulls it out to press into his nose whenever a reeking commander or soldier approaches him after being summoned for new orders.
Ormund Hightower that orders his wife to stay in their tent at all times because it’s too dangerous for a lady of her birth to wander around soldiers but the in reality he doesn’t anyone in the camp ogling her and getting funny ideas about his wife.
Ormund Hightower marches into their tent buzzing with anger after getting a message from Kings Landing saying that he is meant to remain where he is and wait for Aemond to come on Vhagar before he can make any other move.
Ormund Hightower who takes his anger out by fucking his wife into the mattress — lewd sounds, desperate moans and grunts could be heard by anyone that passed their tent. He himself couldn’t care less by who heard or who knows that he’s fucking his wife — for him it’s even better because they all will know that she’s only his.
Ormund Hightower who takes his wife while she’s on her hands and knees, his hand wrapped around her throat to tilt her head back to rest on his shoulder, her back pressed to his chest, hair sticking to her forehead and eyes glossy with tears because of how well he fucks her. His cock hits all the right places making her clench on him and whine pathetically while his hand chokes her slightly.
Ormund Hightower whose hand slide off her throat to press into her lower belly when he cums — deep inside her, his seed planting another heir, another son for house Hightower and he throbs at the mental image of her swollen and filled with his child bearing the fruit of his love for her.
Ormund Hightower that pressed his nose into the heated skin of her shoulder as she breaths — trying to stop the tremor of her muscles after he finally pulls out
summary: you're wed to ser gwayne hightower in one last desperate attempt to unite the realm; but when the war tears the two of you apart, you're taken prisoner by his cousin, lord ormund hightower, where the line between duty and desire begins to blur. (12k)
contents: targ!reader (no physical descriptions), love triangle, enemies to lovers, angst, hurt/comfort, forbidden love, infidelity, canon divergence, cw for brief mentions of attempted assault and smut 18+ (MDNI): fem receiving oral, unprotected sex, ormund has a scent kink
( NAVIGATION ) | ( MASTERLIST ) | ( AO3 )
i. DUTY & HONOR
Your last name was, perhaps, your greatest burden. It was the very walls of your prison; the unseen chain cinched perpetually around your throat. You had inherited the dragon’s blood, it seems, but not the dragon’s freedom — and when Rhaenyra’s fleet sailed across the Narrow Sea to wage war over a throne of swords, it forgot to take you with it. The only home you’d ever known was soon filled with ghosts donned in Hightower green and whispers of your leaving.
You were going to die here. That is a truth you learned long ago. Your only wish was that they’d hurry up and get it over with.
They gave you a husband instead.
Your marriage to Ser Gwayne Hightower was heralded as an act of wisdom, the proof that wounds carved by old grievances could yet be stitched together, with silk ribbons tied around the wrists and a few spoken vows declared before the Sept. It was to be the very bridge that united the green and black. But the bridge burned anyway, and left the two of you behind.
“They wed us to prevent a war that had already begun,” you’d scoffed, already deep into your cups at the feasting table, when Maester Orwyle called the fight to come inevitable.
“No…” Gwayne hummed from beside you, still perfectly temperate, though his blue eyes were heavy with a burden too old for a man of his years. “They wed us so that, when the histories of this moment are written, someone might say that they tried.”
You’d laughed then, loud enough to gain the attention of the rest of the courtiers at the long table — because Ser Gwayne was not entirely wrong, to be sure, but he was far too generous for his own good; generous enough to believe that the effort of your marriage actually meant something in the grand scheme of things.
Gwayne Hightower was a sensible man. He was not outwardly affectionate, maybe, but he was no less kind. There was no great love in your union — not like all the songs and fairytales insist, at least — but there was safety. Security. Stability. His presence often found you like the thick walls of an ancient keep, steadfast against the howling winds of a summer storm. You would find no certainty of your future in war, but being Gwayne’s wife meant, at the very least, that you were still alive today.
That unsaid assurance is perhaps a greater gift than any truly loving marriage could’ve been for you. And, perhaps, it was with that unsaid assurance that you came to admire him, without ever realizing you were doing so — always searching for his face in crowds, waiting every night for the familiar sound of his footsteps to walk outside your chamber doors, constantly watching him from a distance (which has become a most embarrassing habit of yours).
You find him now on the western balcony overlooking Blackwater Bay, where the moon climbs high over shimmering midnight waters. The salty breeze mixes with the scent of damp stone and dying fires from the lantern light glittering in the city below. Gwayne stands alone with his forearms propped on the pale stone balustrade, having exchanged his armor for a forest-green doublet embroidered with winding gold vines. The fading torchlights gild his silken auburn hair, stirred loose by the sea breeze.
You linger just beneath the archway, hidden in the place where the torchlight turns to shadow, studying the slope of his strong shoulders and how they rise and fall with each breath. He looks lonely; lonely enough for your chest to tighten with the want to close the distance between you and slip in beside him. But your feet refuse to move. And whatever affection was warming in your chest before pierces through you like a sword.
“You’re staring.” The suddenness of his voice startles you.
“…You’re supposed to be watching the sea,” you respond, half-shy. He doesn’t look back at you when you emerge finally from the shadows; slippers scuffing the cobblestones, black skirts fluttering at your feet.
“I was,” Gwayne nods.
“Then how could you possibly notice I was standing there?”
He turns to face you then, as you settle on the balcony just beside him, keeping a few feet of careful distance between you like you always did — as if, in your union, an invisible line had been wedged between you and could not be crossed.
The corner of his mouth lifts slowly into a crooked smile. “Because I notice everything about you,” he answers like it’s simple, like he hadn’t just stolen the breath from your lungs.
Heat crawls up the low neckline of your dress, speckling across your cheeks and the very tip of your ears. You turn away, face screwed in a feigned disgust, and busy your hands with an imaginary wrinkle on your sleeve.
“That,” you murmur. “Is a terrifying thought.”
“Well, it ought to terrify you,” Gwayne quips knowingly, bending softly at the waist to fold his arms along the stone railing. “I’ve seen the way you steal the candied slices off of all your lemon cakes just to leave the sponge untouched, you know? Like an utter madwoman.”
“Well…” you huff, face flaring hot at the acknowledgment of being so openly seen by another. “It seems I made the dreadful mistake of marrying the observant man in the Seven Kingdoms.”
“And here I thought that distinction belonged to my cousin,” Gwayne jokes lowly, brows raised to his hairline. “I shall write to Lord Ormund at once and relieve him of the title.”
You laugh quietly through your nose and turn away again. Silence settles comfortably over you once more, filled only by the distant clanging of metal as guards change their shift and the far-off crowing of a caged raven. The night feels impossibly dark, emptier than usual. It feels like an omen of sorts.
“It grows worse, does it not?” you wonder aloud through the breath that catches in your chest, as if you were half scared to even ask.
Gwayne’s thin smile slowly fades. His adam’s apple bobs in his throat. “Aye,” he nods. “I fear it does.”
“I keep… hoping that…” You swallow around the invisible hand tightening around your throat. “That they’ll remember I am your wife before they remember whose blood I carry. I feel it’s the only reason they’ve yet to take my head.”
“Of course, they remember,” he assures you.
“It feels less and less so these days.”
“They’re only frightened—”
“I’m frightened,” you remind him.
The admission lingers between you like the salt water scent hanging in the air. Gwayne studies you for a long moment — he sees the flicker of sincerity flashing across your face right before you turn away from him again, and the way your jaw clenches a second later in regret of saying the words aloud.
He leans an elbow along the parapet to face you fully. And, as if to soothe you, he asks, “If there were no war… No thrones, no dragons—”
“No Hightowers?” you add.
“—If the Stranger himself appeared before you now and offered you another life,” the auburn-haired man continues with a hint of a smile gracing his lips. “What would you do?”
You ponder the question for a moment, eyes zeroed on the navy black horizon ahead as your fingers fidget on the stony barricade. “I should like a farm,” you answer, mouth twitching into an absentminded grin. “Somewhere far away from here. So I could raise chickens—”
“Chickens?” he scoffs a dry laugh, then softens a second later at the sincere look you give him. He swallows hard and nods supportively. “Most ladies would’ve said children, is all…”
“Well, I am not most ladies…” you tell him. “I would have a field of apple trees, and a hundred dogs to protect all my chickens and horses and fluffy cows— you know, the ones that live down in the Reach?”
“Well…” Gwayne croons. “You’ve certainly thought about this, haven’t you?”
“Every day,” you confess. The honesty in your answer strikes him down like a blade; the sorrowful look that heavies your face even more so. The reality of your situation returns to you then, settling over you like gravity’s inevitable weight. You swallow hard before you confess, “I fear they’ll kill me if matters grow worse at Dragonstone.”
“They won’t.”
“You cannot know that.”
“I do,” Gwayne assures you and takes a slow step closer, until the inherent warmth of his skin dulls the bite of the bitter sea wind. He ducks his chin to his chest to chase your gaze, peering down at you with glittering blue eyes. “I swore a vow before gods and men, did I not?”
“So do most men—”
“Well, I am not most men,” he lilts with an air of amusement hanging on the edge of his words. “I actually meant my vows.”
Your eyes soften as they search his face, looking for any hint of hesitation or doubt in his handsome features. You find no uncertainty there; just the maddening, immovable confidence that seems to be stitched into the very fiber of his making.
“If this castle should fall tomorrow…” you whisper to him, eyes narrowing in skepticism. “Or if your family decides that I have become too great a burden to keep here… What happens then?”
“Then I shall stand in the doorway,” he shrugs.
A shocked laugh sputters from your mouth at his boyish conviction. “And if they mean to come through it?”
“Then…” His lips jut softly. “They shall first have to make a corpse of me.”
“You are a valiant knight, Ser Gwayne, but you cannot fight an entire army.”
“Perhaps not,” he replies with a sad sort of smile. “But armies are made of men. And every man who wishes to reach you will first have to face me... As I said… I meant my vows.”
Something in his words strikes a deep sadness within you. No one had ever spoken of your being like it possessed any value worth defending, and now the words come from the very family you were meant to despise.
But even still, for the first time since the ravens brought the tidings of war and the dragons took wing against dragon, you believed him. You believed that, should the whole realm come crashing down around you, Ser Gwayne would likely be the only one left standing at your side when the last stone fell.
And, gods, how stupid you were to do so.
ii. OATHS & ASHES
The news of your husband’s leaving came not from your husband himself.
It came, rather, in whispers at court, slithering through the Red Keep like snakes beneath rushes — passing from Gold Cloak to stable boy to serving girl to scullion. “They say Ser Criston and his knights are marching for Harrenhal on the morrow,” says a thick-accented handmaiden. “Lord Hand means to smoke Daemon from the castle. It’ll be Prince Aemond’s before the next moon, no doubt.”
Your stomach dropped so harshly at the whispers that you nearly retched upon the marble. It was not Gwayne’s leaving that frightened you so, but rather what his absence would represent — he might as well throw you to the hounds himself before he goes, because you were as good as dead with him gone.
Your slippers strike the ancient stone in a frantic rhythm as you turn on your heel to storm back the way you came. The harsh echo of the soles catches the attention of surrounding servants, who flatten themselves against the walls as you hurry suddenly past. Your heartbeat pounds like thunder in your ears, far louder than the bells of the Great Sept that toll the evening hour — the combination of both feels like an ominous funeral knell.
You rush up the winding stone staircase with your crimson skirts gathering in your fists. Gwayne’s chambers sit directly opposite yours, and you find the heavy wooden door is cracked ajar. The hinges screechbeneath your palm when you shove it the rest of the way open without warning. The sight you find on the other side hollows you from the inside out — a travel satchel, laid open along the emerald sheets. Inside, a whetstone, riding gloves, a leather-bound prayer book, a sword belt, a flask.
The careful order of it all feels almost cruel. Chaos, at the very least, would suggest some air of hesitation from the man; a faint pause at leaving you behind. This, however, feels far too final.
Gwayne stands at the head of the bed with his back facing you. His pale hands work with a quiet precision to roll a Hightower-green cloak into his bag. He did not need to turn at the sudden intrusion. He learned the sound of your footsteps long ago.
“I wondered how long it might take,” the man croons distantly. The calmness of his voice, the indifference, sets you entirely aflame.
“Why would you not tell me?” you bite in response.
Gwayne glances over his shoulder at you then. The flickering candlelight turns his hair a more golden shade of Hightower-red, and carves the soft edges of his face out in shadow. He was still every inch the striking knight that the whispers purported him to be — broad as an oak tree, handsome as a saint carved into an altar — but there’s a foreign weariness etched into his features now. It darkens the skin beneath his eyes, turns his gaze a duller shade of icy blue.
“Well, I was going to, of course.”
“When?” The sharpness in your voice could draw blood.
“…Tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” Your laugh splinters the otherwise silent room, sharper than broken glass. You shut the door behind you with an aggressive hand and close the distance between you, dress skirts billowing wildly at your ankles. “When you ride at dawn? And you meant to tell me when your horses were already saddled?”
“Yes,” Gwayne sighs, lowering the folded doublet into its place. “I thought I might spare you one night’s grief—”
“You’re abandoning me,” you tell him then, as if to translate the man’s words back to himself. You linger at his side, eyes darting wildly over his profile when he fails to meet your gaze. “Just like all the rest of them. You do realize that, right?”
“The king has given orders—”
“Well, it wasn’t the king who stood beside me at Blackwater Bay not even a week ago, was it?” Your voice lowers into a faux-masculine tone, trying and failing to mock him. “If anyone comes for you, I shall stand in the doorway—”
Gwayne scoffs. “Surely, I do not sound like that.”
“—They shall first have to make a corpse of me.”
“Yes… I remember,” he answers through a slow huff of annoyance, stepping back from his travel bag to drag a pair of weary hands down his face. “I was— well into my cups by then, as you well know—”
“Oh, do not cheapen those words now,” you spit, shoving hard at his shoulder. Gwayne’s features twist in offense as his wide eyes glance down at the hand you’d pushed him with, though he doesn’t move an inch. “Don’t dishonor yourself with a coward’s excuse just to make up for the fact that you lied.”
Gwayne’s composure fractures at that. He had spent too much of his life trying to be a good knight, a good man — one that maybe his callous father could be proud of — so he refuses to stomach accusations of otherwise from you.
His icy blue eyes harden into a glacial sort of look, more hurt than truly angry. He lays his cloak into place to face you fully.
“Do you not see that I am leaving to keep the fight from coming here?”
“Do not you see that by leaving me here that I’m as good as dead?” you retort through a jaw clenched tight. “If you do not take me with you, then—”
“Of course I’m not taking you with me!” he scoffs with a crooked smile, like it’s funny to him. “You’d be dead before we made it to the God’s Eye—”
“And I will be dead before this war is won if you leave!” you shout, voice wet and fragile with the unshed tears burning the backs of your eyes. “The fight is already here! The people who wish me dead are in these walls! They pour my wine, they wash my hair, they cook my food, they bow when I walk by and whisper when my back is turned! And if you aren’t here, then…”
You trail off with a ragged breath. Your corset feels suddenly tight against your ribs. You choke back the sob that strangles your throat and blink rapidly to clear the haze of tears blurring at your waterline. You peer up at the man with the sternest gaze you can muster.
“I am… frightened,” you tell him, though your voice cracks into a fragile whisper halfway through.
The anger disappears from Gwayne’s face as quickly as it arrived. His shoulders deflate with a slow huff through his nose as he takes a slow step towards you. His hands release their clenched fists to reach hesitantly for your face. His palms are warm and softly calloused when they cup your cheeks, caressing you with a tenderness he hasn’t shown since your bedding ceremony six or more moons ago.
The quiet half-smile he gives you, then, is weighed down by a palpable sadness.
“To tell you the truth… I have never been more afraid than I am right now,” he confesses in a low murmur, swiping his thumb over the warm apple of your cheek. The softness in his voice threatens to undo you entirely.
“So then don’t go,” you plead in a small voice, grasping at the front of his emerald doublet until the golden vines wrinkle under your grip. “Please.”
“If Harrenhal remains in Rhaenyra’s hold, and if Daemon rallies the Riverland armies, then the war will come here,” Gwayne continues in a painfully steady voice. “I fear I don’t have a choice in the matter.”
“Everyone has a choice,” you tell him, filled with a girlish sort of rage once more. “But, I suppose you’ve already made yours.”
The man meets your scowl with a tired, slightly heartbroken smile. “Please do not make me spend my last night with my wife quarreling with her,” Gwayne jokes quietly, swiping an eyelash from your cheek with the pad of his thumb. “At least leave me with something to hold onto until my return.”
Your tight chest deflates with a slow sigh from your nose. The rage ebbs evenly into grief. “And what shall I have, hm? Considering tonight is very likely my last one alive and all…”
Gwayne laughs. “You are being… catastrophically dramatic.”
Your chest burns with a mixture of rage and desire. He could never possibly understand you, but somehow, he is the only one with the walls of the Keep who ever has. The contrast is dizzying.
“I hate you,” you hear yourself say.
“Perhaps...” Gwayne hums, warm breath fanning across your cheek. “But not nearly as much as you love me.”
Your first instinct is to strike him for the sarcasm in his words; your second is to weep at the truth of them. He kisses you before you can do either.
He ducks down to press his lips to yours in a tender kiss, a mere brushing of your lips. The last time he had done so was beneath the glowing candles of the Sept, following the declaration of your wedding vows. But that was an obligation, a political victory of sorts.
This kiss is far sweeter in comparison. You feel the man heavying against you as he falls deeper into your touch. He opens your mouth with his and flicks the pad of his tongue against yours, like velvet brushing velvet. Your hands tremble as they leave the chest of his doublet to rake through his auburn locks, like silk between your fingers. You sigh against his open mouth at the taste of him — like wine and mint and oranges — sweet enough to get drunk on.
It takes you a long moment to realize his hands have snaked around your waist accordingly. You don’t realize his deft fingers are loosening the tie in your corset until the discomfort in your ribs disappears entirely. Your body acts before your mind, and your arms slither from their sleeves to curl once more around Gwayne’s broad shoulders.
The man folds the top of your dress down until your bare chest is revealed to him. A grumbled moan sounds in the back of his throat as he pulls you back into him with two wide palms along your bare back, pressing your breasts flush against his chest. He thinks, if he concentrated hard enough, he could feel the steady thundering of your heart like this.
“Gwayne—” you whisper against his mouth when you feel something hardening against your hip. Your hands drop from his hair to slide between your bodies, headed for the tie in his trousers to release the stiffness growing there.
He twists you round in the meanwhile, shoes scuffing the cobbles, until the bend of your knees meets the edge of the mattress behind you. He lays you down without once taking his mouth off of yours, with one wide palm splayed along your ribcage and his other cradling the back of your neck.
He pulls off of you with a quiet smack to catch his breath. A small whimper sounds in the back of your throat when his warm body leaves yours, rising to reach down for your skirts. Your bare chest heaves as you sit up on your elbows to watch him fumble with your dress. “Gods above, how many skirts are you wearing?” you hear him complain under his breath. “I’ve faced hedge knights with fewer defenses than this.”
You giggle when he finally pushes the layers of your dress up to your hips. Your thighs spread on instinct, exposing yourself to him. Gwayne’s mouth waters at the sight of your silken folds, already glittering in anticipation. Your chest tightens when he falls to his knees before you.
“What are you doing?” you ask on bated breath.
Gwayne flashes you a love-drunk grin and a pair of glassy blue eyes. His warm palms smooth along the velvety skin of your inner thighs to spread them further. “Call it a knight’s act of service, shall we?” he quips.
His auburn head disappears beneath your bunched-up skirts a second later. Your face twists momentarily in confusion before you feel his tongue slotting in the silk folds of your cunt. He licks a fat stripe up the length of it, until his tongue finds something that makes your hips twitch despite yourself. His mouth closes around the sensitive button, suckling at it with a grumbled moan in the back of his throat.
Your head tips back at the feeling. Your lips part as if to moan, but the electric shock in the pit of your stomach knocks all the available air from your lungs. You feel him laughing against you when your thighs clench suddenly around his head, tighter than you realize.
Gwayne pulls off of you with a quick smacking sound. He wears your slick down to his chin as he flashes you a teasing, glassy-eyed look. “I’d quite like to keep my head, dear wife—”
You say nothing in response to his quip. You just dart a head to the crown of his skull and shove his face back between your thighs.
Gwayne complies without complaint, lapping at the honey you leak for him, until the wet sounds of his mouth fill the quiet chambers. You rock your hips against his face, bracing yourself with the auburn locks you clench in your fist.
His nose nudges the swollen bud that makes you keen, right before he takes it in his mouth again. Your skin buzzes at the foreign feeling.
“Gwayne—” you gasp. A tight feeling settles deep in your stomach, like a fraying knot about to snap. Your back arches off the mattress. Your hand tightens in his hair. Your features screw in a pain look, half-scared at the pleasure welling within you. “I can’t—”
“Mm…” he just keeps moaning against you, letting the vibrations deepen your pleasure. His wide hands smooth up and down your outer thighs when they tremble on either side of his head, clenching around him as your orgasm hits you with a pleasured whine. He laps up every ounce of honey you leak for him, and sighs hard through his nose at the salty-sweet taste of you.
Only when your legs grow finally lax around his jaw does he pull back from your thighs. A smile curls lazily at his rosier, more swollen mouth. The bottom half of his face glitters in the candlelight with a mixture of saliva and cum — you lift your head in time to watch him wipe his mouth with the back of his hand.
“If this truly is my final night alive…” you say through panted breaths, eyes still wide from the shock of your simmering pleasure. “I feel I could finally die a happy woman.”
“I’m glad I could be of service, princess…” Gwayne smiles lazily, grimacing slightly at the ache in his knees as he rises from the unforgiving cobbles. He leans down to lay his warmth back over you. You stop him with a firm hand on his chest.
“I want to be on top this time,” you confess in a breathless whisper, eyes darting back and forth between his.
Gwayne’s brows raise slowly in shock at your sudden display of dominance. The corner of his lip twitches into a smile the same way his cock twitches in his boxers. He nods until the words catch up to him. “As you wish…”
iii. CROWNS & CAGES
You did not weep when they came for you, scarcely a fortnight after your lord husband’s leaving.
Gwayne was gone by first light, perhaps already a league or more away before you stirred awake that morning to the chill of an empty bed. He parted with nothing but a folded scrap of parchment resting where his head had been the night before. In his scrawled handwriting, half-smudged from where his wrist had dragged the ink in haste, he wrote: “Write to me. Don’t die. I’ll build the form for you myself.”
You keep the note tucked safely inside the chest of your corset now, folded so many times that the edges have already begun to soften. You keep it close to your heart like a holy relic, or perhaps, a threat to whatever unlucky son of a bitch kills you first — something to discover on your corpse after they slit your throat, so they’ll know who to answer to upon your husband’s return.
Eventually, the servants ceased asking whether you needed anything, and all your meals came cold. Conversations ceased the moment you entered a room, and doors slammed shut before you could reach them. And then, when word spread that a wild dragon had taken wing not far from here, all eyes of suspicion turned to you — to whom a dragon had never belonged, though the blood in your veins wearied the courtiers all the same. Rhaenyra had already added three new riders to her fleet; she certainly did not need another.
You were no longer a bride, but a prisoner in pretty gowns — it was the Queen Dowager, and your sister by law, who confirmed as much to you.
“I had hoped…” Alicent started slowly, bathed half in sunshine and half in shadow from where she stood before the window in your quarters, watching the distant storm clouds blow in over Blackwater. “That I might never have to ask this of you.”
Her auburn curls swept over her pale shoulder when she turned to face you. Something heavy sat in her round green eyes, as if she wanted you to finish the rest of it for her. But you remained as stoic and silent as ever from where you sat at the small dining table just across from her. Your hands wrung into knots over your skirts, hidden beneath the surface, as you waited for the words of your fate to fall from her lips.
“The council believes that— Should the opportunity present itself, you would attempt to reach the wild beast. The Cannibal, I believe it’s called,” Alicent said. “And through him, Rhaenyra.”
“So…” You sighed, making no attempt to argue the subject. It did not matter whether or not it was true; the possibility was enough to make you a criminal. “The Black Cells, then?”
“No,” Alicent shook her head, half-offended by the suggestion. “Of course not. My cousin, Lord Ormund, he commands the Hightower host. He has agreed to keep you under his… protection for the time being.”
“Protection?” you echoed through a scoff. The word tasted foreign and bitter in your mouth. “What a pleasant name for captivity.”
Alicent’s face flickered with a mother’s sort of sympathy. Her hands wrang together beneath the draping sleeves of her emerald dress.“You will be treated with every courtesy your station deserves, I assure you.”
“If your council means to bargain with me, Your Grace…” you started with a sad smile. “They mistake me for something worth bartering for. Rhaenyra already abandoned e— keeping me hostage will not make her respond to your offered terms.”
“Even still… You would be far safer there than you would be here, whether or not you believe that’s true,” Alicent said. “I know what my brother would wish of me. And Gwayne would never forgive me if I didn’t do everything I could to keep you safe.”
The long journey south smells of wet earth and horse dung. By the time you reach the Hightower encampment — which sprawls across the rolling fields like a second city — your fine silk gown has long surrendered to the dust of the road, and your hands now bear the tenderness of a week spent in the saddle.
Your broad-shouldered escort guides you through the avenue of canvas tents billowing wildly beneath snapping green banners. The air smells of woodsmoke, cooked venison, and salty sweat — the soft breeze carries with it the sound of laughter, barking hounds, clanking chainmail, and shouted commands.
A pair of guards draw back the heavy canvas of the biggest pavilion in the camp. “My lord,” one says to announce your arrival inside, right before the entrance flap closes heavily behind you.
Inside, candles burn despite the lingering daylight, filling the enclosed tent with the smell of beeswax and parchment from the large map covering the long oak table. Pieces carved from ivory and oak mark castles and armies across the whole of Westeros, waiting to be won or maybe burned.
A strange man stands over them with his broad hands planted along the edge, visibly built beneath his ornately decorated armor, and standing several inches taller than the rest of the knights in the room.
Lord Ormund was not pretty like Gwayne, but he was his own kind of handsome, made of sharp edges and strong features. His Hightower-auburn curls are less vivid in color and sheared short. He has his family’s pair of striking blue eyes, too, which feel a little like they’re piercing you when he glances up from his map.
“Leave us,” he commands his guards in a low, melodic voice, keeping his eyes on you as his knights filter out of the tent. Their armor clatters faintly as they go. The man doesn’t say another word until they’re gone.
“So…” he hums, one corner of his mouth lifting upwards. “The infamous dragon bride.”
Your brows bounce at the title. It feels like another chain around your neck. “I suppose I’ve been called worse…” you sigh, studying him with the same curiosity. “You must be Lord Ormund.”
“I must,” the man nods as he rounds the war table at an unhurried pace.
His boots sink into the woven rungs laid across the hard earth with each step. He towers several inches over your head when he plants himself in front of you. He smells of steel and sweat and strongly of incense.
“I expected someone… older.”
His brows raise in amusement. “And here I expected someone taller.”
“Well,” you deadpan, eyes narrowing up at him as your hands clasp behind your back. “I’m sorry for disappointing you, Ser.”
“Oh, I’ve endured far worse disappointments, my lady, I assure you.” A ghost of a smile graces his pink lips as his eyes soften slightly around the edges. “I give you my word. While you remain beneath my banners, no harm will come to you.”
You sigh hard through your nose. “Yes… People keep promising me that.”
“I’m sure they have… But I intend to honor it.” The certainty of the man’s words unsettles you. It’s strange, you find, to be looked at like you were something worth protecting. “And if you require anything— anything at all. You need only ask.”
You nod slowly with a deep exhale, considering the offer. “A quill,” you conclude firmly.
Ormund blinks. “A… A quill?”
“Yes,” you say. “And parchment.”
“For… What purpose?” he laughs.
You glance over your shoulder towards the tent’s fluttering entrance, where the last light of the early evening burns gold against a sea of green banners. You wonder, briefly, how many soldiers outside this pavilion would celebrate if they found you dead on the morrow — how many would mourn, how many would care enough to do anything at all.
You think, perhaps, that in the whole of the Seven Kingdoms, there is only one person who would weep for you. And he was a hundred leagues away.
“So that I may write to my lord husband,” you answer finally. “And tell him that I was right… And that he still owes me a farm.”
Lord Ormund allows you to write to Gwayne that night, and every seventh day after. It was the only thing you could look forward to, since there was little else to do at camp. He had been gracious enough to give you your own pavilion at the edge of the command encampment, close enough for the sentries to watch but far enough away to force you into solitude.
It was clean and moderately comfortable — with a narrow cot draped in a single wool blanket, a traveling chest for the few dresses you were allowed to bring, a wash basin, and a small writing table tucked beneath the only slit in the canvas that permitted daylight. Inside smelled of candle wax, pressed linen, and lavender soap.
Outside smelled of war — of pressed metal from the blacksmiths, of men cursing over burnt porridge, of stableboys tending to horses who fouled the earth faster than they could shovel it. It was cruel, how the world went on while you could go scarcely a step without an escort. Eventually, you became accustomed to feeling a hundred eyes upon your back — most curious, others suspicious, some outright hateful.
The letters you wrote to Gwayne, at least, gave you the illusion of escape. You tended to each with careful precision — melting the wax, stamping it shut, then tying it off with a ribbon — and watched from afar as one of Ormund’s knights carried them toward the rookery. It was not until the twentieth day at camp, when you wandered further than you were typically allowed, that you noticed that none of your messages had been sent. You watched the knight toss the letter into the fire, flinching slightly when the flames sparked beneath the fresh kindling.
It had been four days since then.
And you haven’t eaten once in protest.
It took roughly half that time for Lord Ormund’s patience to run thin. He’s suffered the endless whispers of your attempts to starve to death with an increasing displeasure. He commands thousands of knights beneath his banners, serves as the leader of his house with grace, and yet — he still cannot seem to manage to command one lady to supper. It was absurd. Humiliating. And worse, it invited doubt. What army will follow a man whom they believe incapable of governing his own household?
On the fifth evening, after your breakfast tray went untouched that morning, Ormund opts to bring you your supper himself. He marches through the crowded camp with his jaw clenched tight like a soldier headed into battle. His chainmail clanks with every step. Avoiding the stares he gets from surrounding knights feels borderline impossible.
He throws open the entrance of your tent without ceremony. The canvas snaps sharply beneath his aggressive hand as he ducks suddenly underneath it. The light of the golden evening pours suddenly inside around his towering silhouette before the flap falls shut behind him once more, trapping the two of you inside.
There, he finds you lying on your cot, staring upward at the slit in the pavilion where one lonely shaft of sunlight spills through. Your fingers drift lazily through the rays, as if you were trying to catch it somehow.
Your head snaps suddenly to the side at the sudden intrusion — your hair is loose and unkempt, because no one ever taught you how to do it yourself, and all of your dresses are now wrinkled and stained with dirt. The thin white nightgown you wear makes you look more sunken, more lifeless.
Ormund grasps your tray with one hand and reaches for your small writing desk with the other. He lectures you through the distant pang of sympathy in his chest.
“I have commanded men twice your size—” His boots are heavy on the thin rug as he carries the desk over to you. “I have started sieges, I have broken sieges. And yet—” He slams the table in front of you with a dull thump. You try not to cower under the icy blue glare he gives you. “I cannot seem to persuade one prisoner— a lady, no less— to eat her supper. And I confess, it does very little for confidence in my command. So eat.”
Ormund slams the tray onto the desk. The broth steaming in a small wooden bowl sloshes over. Next to it, strips of leftover venison and a broken loaf of stale bread. Your empty stomach twists painfully with a mixture of nausea and hunger.
“So…” you start lowly, clearing your throat when your voice comes gravelly. You rise from your supine position on weak limbs. The fabric of your nightgown rides up your thighs as you turn to place your bare feet on the ground — eyes dull when you peer up at the man from beneath your lashes. “You admit it, then? That I am your prisoner here?”
His jaw clenches tight. His nostrils flare through a sharp breath. He no longer finds amusement in your banter. “Your status here depends entirely on your pliancy,” he spits, ripping off a piece of the stale loaf. “Now eat.”
You flinch when his fist rears suddenly towards your face, holding the broken bread just in front of your mouth. You blink wildly up at him, features screwed in offense. “…Excuse me?”
“Eat.”
You swat his hand away; it moves scarcely an inch. “I’m not a child—”
“Well, at present, you are behaving remarkably like one,” Ormund argues through a tight jaw. “Now open your mouth.”
You respond with only a glare.
Fury rages through the man’s chest. He wishes wordlessly for the strength of the Mother and the Warrior engraved upon his armor as he offers bitterly, “Or shall I make you?”
You spend a long moment staring up at him with eyes cold enough to freeze wine. You hold his gaze as your mouth parts slowly to accept the chunk of bread he pinches between his thumb and forefinger. He places it upon your tongue with a surprising gentleness, considering the wrath he’d had moments ago.
“Chew,” he commands, glaring down the bridge of his nose at you. Your jaw moves slowly. Ormund nods in approval. “Swallow.”
Your heart lurches into your throat at his order. But you do as you’re told, throat bobbing as the piece of bread goes down. Another piece follows soon after; this time, your lips part before he asks you to do so. Relief crosses over his strong features as he places the food onto your tongue. His shoulders sag with the exhaled breath that it feels like he’s been holding for days.
He looks almost worried for you; relieved, almost, to have fed you. A warm, foreign feeling settles in your chest accordingly.
“I am trying… Very hard to be kind to you,” Ormund confesses, scarred hands twitching at his sides. “So I cannot, for the life of me, understand why you insist on making this so difficult.”
“My letters,” you tell him. “Why aren’t they being sent?”
“The rookery master feared they could be intercepted,” he answers plainly. “I could not risk one falling into enemy hands. I… meant to tell you.”
“When?” you spit.
“When I found a safer way to deliver them.”
A bitter laugh sputters from your mouth. “What curious men you Hightowers are,” you quip with narrowed eyes. “So fond of deciding what sorrows I ought to be spared.”
His brows lower in confusion. “Is that not a kindness?”
His answer lingers between you for several long moments. There was no cleverness in his words, only an honesty that strikes you like a fist to the stomach.
“Aye. I suppose it is,” you answer, clearing your throat when your voice catches.
A strange emotion strangles you, and burns at the back of your eyes as you look down at your dress. Your dull nails pick at a smudge of mud on the fabric that will likely never come off. An embarrassed sort of laugh tumbles from your mouth.
“Perhaps I… I spent so long waiting for someone to hurt me that I no longer remember what kindness is supposed to feel like.”
Ormund nods through a slow exhale from his nose. He glances to the side and walks the short distance to the stool that the table had knocked over in his rage. Your wet eyes follow his form as he walks away and then back to you, setting the chair on the other side of the table. You can feel the warmth radiating from his body, even in the scarce distance between you.
“I’ll admit— A man spends enough time at war, they start to forget that mornings are not meant to begin with fear,” he says, reaching again for the loaf of bread, but this time breaking it in half. “I forget myself, at times, but… if you’ll allow me… I’d very much like to prove to you that I can be kind.”
Your weary features soften around the edges. “Well, I don’t have much of a choice in the matter, do I?” you tell him, with a more sincere smile hinting at the corners of your lips. “I am your prisoner, after all.”
“So you keep insisting,” Ormund quips with his own quiet grin. “But I should rather you thought of yourself as my… responsibility.”
Your heart stumbles a beat. Responsibility felt much safer than hostage, or bargaining piece, or burden. It felt, you’ll admit, like a kindness.
iv. SILK & SWORDS
You fall into a steady routine at the Hightower encampment by the fifth moon of your captivity.
Each morning arrives with the same mournful groan of a warhorn that rolls across the grass green hills before the sun has even broken the horizon. You wake to the distant ringing of hammers against anvils, hounds barking for gristles off the cookfires, and knights shouting for their squires. The first hours were reserved for armorers; the afternoons for drilling knights whose swords cracked together until you could feel them ringing in your skull; and the evenings for songs, laughter, and ale.
Your days, however, remained painfully empty.
Lord Ormund had been kind enough to provide you with greater comforts as the weeks went by — cushioned pillows and heavier woolen blankets for when the nights got colder; sprigs of lavender for your bedside to keep out the stench of man; more parchment and colored ink to busy your hands when the days were especially long. And all of them were especially long. He’d given you his leather-bound prayer book, too, and even though you were not an entirely pious woman, you’d read through it enough times to recite each passage from memory.
The camp has since grown accustomed to your being there, ever since Ormund slackened his metaphorical leash on you — “You’ve had more than ample opportunity to run,” he’d said beneath the scratching of his quill. “Besides, where exactly would you go? No one else would take you.” No one bats an eye when you leave your tent, after three days of relentless rain had finally broken, to pick fresh berries from the brushes along the treeline.
Your crimson silk dress scrubs the dewy evening grass as you collect wild raspberries into a small wooden bowl. The juices stain your fingertips the color of red wine. The sweet scent mixes with the smell of wet earth and mint leaves crushed beneath your slippers. You bend at the waist to parse through tangled brambles, searching for the ripest berries. For the first time in months — years, maybe — you feel almost peaceful.
“Is that a love letter—?”
The voice cuts through the quiet like a blade. Your heart lurches into your throat as you jerk to full height again. The small bowl of berries slips from your grasp and rolls through the wet clover like so many drops of scattered blood. Behind you, you find a vaguely familiar hedgeknight, scarcely ten paces away — made of broad shoulders, broken teeth, and greasy hair that falls to his shoulders.
It takes you an embarrassingly long moment to catch your breath.
“I’m sorry,” you say through a tightening chest. “You… You startled me.”
“Did I?” he hums gruffly, in a voice that borders on amusement.
You cower into the hedgerow behind you as he approaches you, reaching you quickly on much longer limbs. He looms close enough for you to smell the sweat and ale and horse piss on his chainmail, close enough for you to lift your chin to meet his gaze.
His eyes never quite reach yours. They linger, instead, on your chest. “Letter from your lord husband, is it?” he asks, motioning with his head.
Your chin ducks to follow his eyes, where the rough edges of parchment nestled against your chest peek out from your corset. Your hands lift to cover it instinctively. “Yes. It’s a… a letter. From home.”
“Mind if I take a look at it?” he asks, taking another daring step closer. You wince at the sour smell of him. “What does Ser Gwayne write his pretty wife, hm?”
“Please, don’t—”
His hand shoots out. Thick, filthy fingers hook beneath the neckline of your gown, hard enough to stretch the fine silk with an audible crack. You react on pure instinct accordingly, lifting your own hand to strike him before your mind could forbid it.
The sound of your palm colliding with his bearded jaw cracks through the hedgerow like a whip.
His head turns slightly under the blow.
Your breath catches in surprise at yourself.
The back of his hand catches you across the cheek before you can blink. A red-hot pain explodes from your ear to your jaw as your world lurches suddenly sideways. You hit the unforgiving earth below with a huff when the air rushes from your lungs. Coppery blood pools thick on your tongue from where your teeth had cut the inside of your cheek.
“You little cunt—” you hear the man say, right before he catches a fistful of your skirts to pull you back towards him. The fabric screams beneath his hand. The cool evening air strikes your legs all at once when the silk rips up to your thighs.
You kick wildly at the man. Your slipper strikes uselessly against his shoulder. Your fingernails claw muddy furrows through the soaked earth.
“I am— Gwayne Hightower’s wife—” You tell him through panted, fearful breaths. He flips you onto your back by your ankle. Your foot burns beneath his grip. Your head strikes the soaked earth. Through the lack of air in your lungs, you heave, “He will have your head for this—”
“Oh, will he?” the hedge knight laughs with a brown-tooth grin. “‘Cause he ain’t here—”
The hand not holding your squirming ankle reaches for the tie in his trousers.
Then, in a blink, steel sings with a clean rasping sound. Warm blood splashes from your right jaw up to your left temple. For a flicker of a moment, you can’t quite comprehend why — not until the hedge knight kneels suddenly before you, with open eyes that have gone strangely distant. He topples suddenly sideways with his neck bent at an awkward angle, head half cut off and spouting bright red blood.
You blink wildly through the haze of death until you find Ormund standing just behind the corpse, chest rising and falling beneath his heavy armor. His longsword drips crimson onto the grass where your raspberries lie.
Sweat from the long day clings to his dark curls, wetting them against his temples and forehead. Flecks of blood dot his jaw like crimson stars. His blue eyes burn with something fierce, but his voice remains remarkably soft.
“My lady…”
You open your mouth to answer him, but nothing comes out.
Only then do you notice how violently your body is shaking, buzzing with a white-hot fear, as you scan the scene surrounding you — your torn skirts, the blood staining your chest, the dead body at your feet. You stare at the hedge knight’s gushing throat without fully understanding the sight of it.
Ormund reaches you in three long strides. He sheaths his sword without a word before dropping carefully to one knee. He slides one arm under your leg and his other behind your back, hoisting you upward with a pair of strong arms. The scent of blood and earth gives way to the smell of leather, incense, and bathing oils as he cradles you to the broad wall of his chest.
Your trembling hands clench a fistful of the green velvet cape draped along his shoulder.
“You’re safe, my lady,” Ormund murmurs as he carries you back to camp. “You’re safe.”
Your face finds the hollow space between his jaw and collarbone. You’re not entirely sure if you believe the words he speaks, but you know now that you do believe in the man who speaks them.
v. SANCTUARY & SIN
The weeks that followed could be divided into two — the days before the attack and all the days after.
For a time, you startled far too easily. A dropped shield sent you into a panic. A knight laughing too loudly made your pulse skyrocket. And if a pair of bootsteps walked too closely behind you, you lost all your breath before your mind had time to remind your body that no one meant you any harm.
Nights proved harder still. You dreamt of nothing but rough hands and torn silk and crushed berries that smelled so sweet the thought alone made you sick. One moment you were suffocating beneath the sweaty body of a hedge knight, and the next, your canvas door was thrown open while you were choking on a scream.
Ormund stood silhouetted before you, barefoot, with a sword in his naked hand. He’d reached you with haste, after having your pavilion packed up and pitched again not quite twenty paces from his following the attack — “It’ll be easier that way,” he assured you. “If another fool decides to trouble you, I’d rather not have to cross half of Westeros to remove his head.”
His curls were flattened from slumber, his linen shirt unlaced to reveal his broad chest heaving with panic. His sleep-swollen eyes swept every corner of the empty pavilion before they settled finally on you. His steel lowered as he crossed the tent to settle beside you, smoothing a hand up and down your back despite the way your nightgown clung uncomfortably to your sweaty skin.
“We’ll move your bed into my tent,” he’d said. “You’ll sleep there for the time being.”
It was concern disguised as a command. One you could not refuse if you wanted to.
Ormund’s tent was large enough to pass for a modest hall — maps and banners occupied one half, while the other had become something half-resembling living quarters. Your smaller cot was placed opposite his beneath the same sloping canvas roof, separated by little more than a table crowded with candles and books. You would wake occasionally to find Ormund already seated beside the brazier in nothing but a linen shirt, reading dispatches by firelight while occasionally glancing over to see whether you were sleeping soundly.
You pretended that you were, if only to keep on watching him.
But then the late summer storms arrived; and the unforgiving deluge washed over the camp with enough violence to shake the pavilion you slept beneath. Thunder cracked like an explosion closely overhead, and you woke with another frightened gasp before remembering where you were.
Ormund was already awake, as if stirred in knowing that you were scared.
“If you’re frightened…” he murmured from across the darkness. A flash of lightning revealed his blanketed body, and his face half-smushed into his pillow. “I imagine my bed could accommodate two people without either touching the other."
You crossed the space between your cots and climbed beneath his blankets without another word.
You haven’t left his bed since.
The days soon settle into something almost resembling normalcy. Ormund, you find, possesses an absurd fondness for taking care of you — always making sure that you’ve eaten breakfast before he’s started his mornings; delivering his wool blankets to you before you can complain that you’re cold, warming your hands between his calloused palms when he does so; and escorting you through camp with a protective hand splayed along the small of your back.
No one ever cared for you with such deliberate attention before — even Gwayne, as gentle as he was, could only love you from a respectful distance before the war had sent him off. Your husband washed away into memory, into the note left abandoned somewhere on the forest floor.
You did not know whether he still rode beneath banners or if his corpse had been picked clean by crows. You did know, at the very least, that Ormund was here — he was there in the mornings when you woke and each night when old fears crept back into your skin. It was a dangerous thing, you soon realized, to mistake safety for love. Or more dangerous still, to suspect that the two were any different at all.
You watch from Ormund’s bed — freshly bathed beneath your thin ivory slip, with your legs kicking lazily from where you lie on your stomach — as his squire removes pieces of his armor. A sketchbook lies open before you, alongside a collection of colored inks.
“This is what you get for tightening the straps so much,” Ormund hums as Daeron struggles with the final buckle across the man’s broad shoulders.
“Well, you’d like them to remain attached, wouldn’t you?” the boy quips back.
The man smiles despite himself. “You complain more than any squire I've ever met, do you know that?”
“I learned everything from you, did I not?”
When the final piece of armor comes finally free, Ormund dismisses the boy back to his tent. The entrance cover opens and shuts behind the boy, letting in a rush of cool evening air before it closes again. Silence returns to the expansive pavilion, filled only by the crackling of burning candles.
Ormund, left only in his loose dark breeches and a linen undertunic, walks to the round table to pour himself a goblet of wine. “What is occupying you so completely over there?”
“I’m hard at work,” you answer vaguely.
“So I see.” He eyes you carefully over the glugging of the flagon. A faint, unreadable flicker crosses his face. “Writing to Gwayne, are you?”
“No,” you sigh. “I’m drawing you.”
You set the quill into the inkpot and lift the sketchbook to face the man with a girlish grin, which seems to be becoming more and more frequent as the days go by. Ormund’s light eyes squint to study the page. It was unmistakably him drawn in the ink, though perhaps only if one was exceedingly charitable. The proportions are all wrong: his nose is too large, his mouth is too small, one eye sits higher than the other, and he’s missing his left brow.
His eyes flick to meet yours again. “…Is that intended to be me?” he asks, motioning with the goblet in his fist.
“Of course,” you shrug like it’s obvious.
“Well,” he sighs, raising the cup to his mouth. “I had no idea that I resembled that of a rotting turnip.”
You gasp in faux-offense that’s soon overcome by a fit of laughter. “It is not that bad!”
“My lady…” Ormund huffs sympathetically, abandoning his ale to saunter slowly towards the bed. “This could be considered treason— I should confiscate this immediately."
“You shall do no such thing,” you tease.
“Oh really?” he croons, brows raised in amusement.
He lunges for you in an instant. You jerk back onto your haunches with a squeal, cradling the sketchbook to your chest. You dodge each of his attempts to take it with a girlish gracelessness, laughing harder with each of his failed attempts. Ormund smiles at the sound without realizing it, dropping the table of ink to the rug below before clambering onto the bed to follow you.
One final tug sends the book flying across the bed, and the two of you go to reach for it at the same time. The momentum carries you forward until you land clumsily against his chest, knocking the breath out of him as his back hits the mattress, with you squarely on top of him.
It takes you a long moment to realize your precarious position — your chest brushing his beneath your thin slip, noses nearly touching, breaths nearly entwining. Your laughter fades first, but you still do not move. Ormund’s smile flickers, but his hands lift to rest lightly along the arms you use to prop up your weight on top of him.
You can feel each of his warm breaths fan against your chin. You could get drunk on the ale stained on his mouth from the proximity between you alone. Closer by an inch or two and you would taste it on his lips.
“We ought not,” Ormund murmurs lowly, as if he can read your mind.
“Ought what?”
“This,” he answers. His blue eyes flick briefly in the space separating your mouths. “You are another man’s wife. My cousin’s wife.”
You swallow hard at the mention of Gwayne. It had been far easier to forget him, in truth. “I have not seen my husband in nearly a year,” you reply in a small voice. “I do not even know whether he yet lives…”
Pain etches in Ormund's strong features before disappearing behind his usual practiced restraint. His hands tremble with the urge to smooth away the frown between your brows, but he does not allow himself the satisfaction.
“I swore on oath to protect you,” he says. “To serve you in my cousin’s absence.”
You, without possessing a similar self-control, lift a hand to brush a wild curl from his temple. “And do you intend to keep that promise, Lord Ormund?”
He nods against the mattress. “Of course I do.”
“Okay then…” you hum as a smile tugs slowly at one corner of your mouth. “Then serve me.”
You duck down to close the distance between you without a second thought. The tip of your nose grazes the strong bridge of his as you press your lips to his chapped ones, nothing more than an experimental brushing of your mouths. You go to pull away just as quickly as you came, and whatever restraint Ormund had had before vanishes in an instant.
He lifts his head from the tousled blankets to chase your mouth, cradling your neck with a wide hide to draw you back into him again. The second kiss lands with none of the careful uncertainty of the first. This one is slower, deeper, and far more languid. His tongue licks into your mouth, tasting of wine and the mint leaves he always chews after supper. You sigh through your nose to savor it, melting further into his chest.
Your mouths move together with an awkward sort of tenderness, learning one another by the second. Ormund kisses you far rougher than Gwayne ever did — it’s all tongue and teeth and spit, as if he were committing the taste of you to memory: the meat from your supper, the berry from your tea; the guilt from your broken vows, the relief of being found after believing yourself long abandoned.
Your breath catches in your throat when Ormund suddenly takes charge, urging you onto your back with his mouth still on yours. He pulls off you with a quiet smack, wearing your spit on his rosy mouth like gloss.
“Do you want me to stop?” he asks with heavy eyes that dart back and forth between your glassy ones.
You shake your head against the cushions beneath you, features twisting with a pained look at the thought of stopping now.
“Do you understand what will follow? What… vows both of us will be breaking?”
Your eyes glisten as they dance between his blue ones. “The war broke those vows,” you tell him, half-breathless. “Not us.”
Ormund nods wordlessly for a moment, pleased with your answer. “Then open,” he says.
Your mouth parts for him on instinct. He lifts his middle and pointer finger to your lips, wetting them on your tongue, before sliding them in between your bodies. His hand disappears beneath the skirt of your slip. Your head tips back when you feel his fingertips sliding between your velvety folds, brushing your clit before sinking into your waiting cunt.
Your sigh fills the quiet tent, accompanied by the low groan in the back of Ormund’s throat.
“You’re softer than I imagined…” he confesses, almost to himself.
“Imagining me a lot, are you?” you tease on bated breath.
“Yes,” he answers without missing a beat. “I dreamt of how your cunt would wrap around me… of how you’d soak the sheets… of what noise you’d make when I moved my fingers like this—”
A whine catches in your throat when he crooks his fingers just so, nestling the fatty part of his palm flat against your clit. Your hips buck into his hand despite yourself. Your exhaled whine is half-drowned beneath his breathy chuckle.
“There it is…” he praises.
“Fuck me,” you plead, face crumpling under the weight of your need. One hand twists in his hair, while your other fists in his thin white tunic to keep him close. You only vaguely realize how little you sound like yourself as you plead: “I need it so bad, Ormund, please, fuck me—”
The man goes dizzy at the sound of your begging, as if he brought you into his camp, his tent, his bed, to do anything other than serve you.
His fingers glitter with your slick when he drags them out of your cunt. He brings them to his nose, nostrils flaring slightly as he inhales the scent of your musk upon them. You whine at the sight of it — half-disgusted, half-intrigued. You watch with heavy eyes when he brings the same hand into his trousers to fist his half-hard cock fully stiff for you.
It’s a mess of tangled limbs for a moment, as you drag his shirt gracefully from his torso while he attempts to free himself from his breeches. He’s made of tanned skin, toned muscles, and a dusting of auburn hair from his sternum to his stomach. It grows more dense at the root of his cock — which is not quite as long as Gwayne’s, but thicker still and adorned with more prominent veins.
Ormund works himself hard with his fist; the reddened head of his cock leaks pearly drops every time his hand moves upwards. Your mouth waters for a taste. You let him smear it along the folds of your cunt instead.
You curl your arms under his broad arms to splay your hands along his shoulder blades. They flex slightly under your touch as he leans down over you. You tense on instinct when he pierces you with the tip of his cock. “Shh, shh, shh,” he soothes lowly, fighting back his own grunt as you spread so perfectly around him.
He sinks slowly into you, slow enough for you to feel every vein and ridge of his cock as he mounts you until his hips are flush with yours. Your mouth parts. He ducks down to kiss you before a moan tumbles out, swallowing the pretty sound with his mouth.
He stays still against you for several long, agonizing moments. Your hips buck against his in anticipation. “Please move,” you whine, digging crescent shapes into his shoulders with your nails. “I need you so much, please—”
Ormund’s jaw clenches tight. “Do you have any idea how long it’s been since I’ve been inside another woman?”
Your face screws. “I’d rather not hear about your previous exploits at the moment—”
“Don’t,” Ormund spits, shuddering on top of you when you roll your hips into his once more. He grasps your thigh hard enough to dig bruises into the plush skin with the hand not holding himself up beside your head. His light eyes turn glacial in an instant, darting wildly between both of yours. “I won’t… I won’t last…” he confesses.
Your eyes soften around the edges with a faux innocence. “This isn’t going to be the last time you fuck me, is it?”
The crude word falls so effortlessly from your pristine mouth that it makes his cock jerk within your drooling confines. “I don’t want it to be. No,” he answers, half-shy.
“Then I don’t care how long you last,” you assure him with a lazy grin. “You have kept me hostage for nearly a year— Surely, I’m entitled to make some use of my captor while the realm delays the war, am I not?”
Ormund’s resolve crumbles under your permission. He rolls his hips forward and back again, never quite pulling all the way out of you. He groans quietly when you clench around the sensitive head of his cock; and you swallow down a whimper when the coarse hair below his stomach rubs mercilessly along your sensitive clit.
Your head tips back. He falls to the hollow space between your neck and shoulder.
Ormund’s open-mouthed breaths fan warm along your burning skin as he stumbles into a graceless rhythm, thrusting hard enough to make the wooden frame of his bed squeak quietly beneath you.
The pressure on your clit is relentless. You squirm underneath his sweat-slick body, chasing and running from the pleasure all at once. “I know. I know. It’s okay,” you hear him slur against your skin. “Just take it. Just fuckin’ take it— Fuck—” His voice breaks like splintered glass.
He tenses suddenly above you, taut muscles trembling. You hear his breath catch for a moment, right before a foreign warmth pools in the very pit of your stomach. He groans in time with his release, heavying his weight further against you.
You aren’t far behind.
He grinds his hips lazily to ride out his high, smothering your sensitive clit as the warm, wet, sticky feeling continues to bloom inside of you. “Ormund—” you gasp, tensing beneath him.
“There it is…”the man praises as you tremble underneath him, smearing his lips against your jaw until they reach your parted mouth. “There it is— Fuck, that’s it,look at me.”
Your eyes snap open at his command, bleary and heavy-lidded. You ride out the rest of your orgasm with your gaze locked with his glassy one.
The honeyed moment doesn’t last nearly as long as either of you would’ve liked.
“My lord?”
The two of you sober in a flash as the spell between you shatters. Ormund stills suddenly above you, as if pierced by steel. The warmth flees from his features at once, replaced by the hard composure of the commander of House Hightower. You, too, freeze where you lay beneath him — pulse thrumming hard in your throat as the muffled voice drifts once more through the pavilion.
“My lord—”
“Yes, Daeron,” Ormund spits through gritted teeth, nostrils flaring as he breathes through the rage searing in his chest. “What is it?”
The squire hesitates at his uncle’s harsh tone. “Forgive me for the intrusion, my lord…” the boy says carefully, hidden behind the covered entrance. “But a messenger arrived from the river road. He bears urgent word from Ser Criston’s camp.”
You feel your stomach sink — or, perhaps, it’s only the mixture of cum seeping out of your still fluttering confines, soaking the sheets beneath you. You feel unspeakably dirty now, and the lack of regret only deepens the feeling.
Ormund remains motionless above you for a moment before sitting back on his haunches. You shiver at the absence of his warmth, and wince slightly when his softening cock slips out of you. “A letter?” he calls to the entrance, brows lowered. “What news?”
“It is sealed, my lord,” Daeron says. “The messenger said it was to be opened by our hand alone.”
Ormund’s confusion deepens. “And who sends it?”
After another brief hesitation, the voice answers solemnly: “Ser Gwayne, my lord.”
- gwayne hightower x wife!reader x ormund hightower
ser gwayne hightower may be known for his chivalry, but beneath his courtly smile is a man of steel and blood. vows have made you his lawfully wedded wife, and when his most peculiar cousin starts weaving his traps for you to fall into… you will see another side of him you have never seen before
genre/warnings:
18+ suggestive content—minors do not interact!—arranged marriage, lots of romance and fluff, hurt/comfort, sunshine!gwayne and grumpy!reader, ormund is his own warning, first time with gwayne (bc he lost it), targaryen!reader (reader is rhaenyra's younger sister)
notes:
gif by @/baelcrtargaryen and @/alysmond. part 2 of to court a princess but can also be read as a standalone. this brainrot has been brewing for a while and i love it :)) so i hope you will too!
“...and even when our bones return to dust, may I find your soul still sworn to mine.”
Before the Seven, as the great bells chimed, you and Gwayne Hightower pledged your vows, sealing them with the tenderest kiss.
The wedding between a princess of the blood and a noble knight of House Hightower was the liveliest celebration the realm had seen in a while. King Viserys was overjoyed, and even Queen Alicent wore a rare genuine smile for both you and her brother. Rhaenyra pulled you into a warm embrace, offering her heartfelt wishes with a glowing smile.
Yet… amidst the sea of well-wishers, there was one gaze that was heavy upon you.
“Many congratulations on this most auspicious union, cousin.”
Ormund Hightower stepped before you, looking impeccably sharp in his exquisite emerald doublet. His voice was cool and devoid of warmth.
While your new husband was kind-hearted, you had heard the future Lord of Oldtown was a Hightower of a different stripe—a true son of his father.
Then, Ormund turned his gaze to you, his lips curling into a crooked smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “And to you as well, Princess...”
His dark gaze wandered, raking down your face to your bust, before returning to meet your eyes unabashedly.
“The songs do you a disservice, Your Grace. You are a far lovelier sight than what they claim.”
There was something in the way he appraised you that made you uncomfortable. It was your first encounter with the infamous son of the Lord of Hightower, and yet you knew instantly what sort of viper he was.
Gwayne’s arm, still resting over your waist, tightened subtly—a silent warning for him, also a reassurance to you.
“She has my heart, Ormund, and my sword,” Gwayne replied smoothly, his eyes flashing with a protective warmth as he looked down at you. “The realm has never seen a more beautiful bride, and I am the luckiest man in the Seven Kingdoms.”
“Why, of course. You have done our house a great service today, Gwayne, and I’m certain you’ll make a fine husband,” he said with a careless shrug, his crooked smile not wavering. He raised his goblet in a mock toast. “May the Light of the Seven bless your union.”
With a final, lingering look at you, Ormund turned on his heel and melted back into the sea of lords and ladies.
“Don’t mind him,” Gwayne hissed under his breath.
The moment his cousin was out of sight, you leaned closer to your groom, noting the sharp clench of his jaw. Sensing your concern, however, he immediately masked his irritation and turned to you with a reassuring smile as he drew you securely against his side.
Yet, as the music surged back to life around you, you couldn’t deny the chill that still prickled your skin. Ormund Hightower would remain at court for the rest of your wedding festivities—
And you had a foreboding feeling you would soon see him again.
The first day of your wedding celebration finally drew to a close. With the feast over, the princess and her new husband were left in the confines of their marital chambers, and—
The time has come for this marriage to be consummated.
A nervous flutter stirred in your chest. Gwayne had given explicit instructions for your handmaidens to leave after removing your headpiece, saying he would take care of the rest.
And try you might to look away as a proper lady should, your eyes kept drifting towards him as he began to undress— all the while bracing yourself, expecting the shift from chivalrous knight to demanding husband.
“If you’re stealing glances at me like an innocent maiden does her first love,” he suddenly remarked with an amused grin, “you’re truly going to make me blush.”
Heat rushed to your cheeks, and you averted your gaze, suddenly finding everything more appealing than him.
Left in just his loose linen shirt, Gwayne had a meaningful smile on his face as he stepped behind you, his fingers reaching out to you to unlace the stiff bodice of your gown.
Oh, this is really happening, is it not?
“We...” You suddenly found it hard to breathe as the heavy layers of your dress came loose. “Are we—”
“Yes, darling?” he chuckled softly, his dimples deepening in the firelight. He clearly found satisfaction in how flustered you had become all of a sudden.
You merely looked down, biting your lip to keep yourself from stammering. Your face felt hot too as his large palm traced the contours of your body— from the line of your ribs to the curve of your waist, and the dip of your hips.
After all, you were inexperienced. You had heard stories of how hurt the first night could be— how rough the men liked it, and how comfort was the last thing a woman should expect.
As his arms circled your waist from behind, pinning you gently against him, you choked out:
“Could you be gentle... at least?”
“Hm?” he hummed, smiling against your skin, his breath warm as he pressed a kiss to your shoulder.
Who could have known that the stern princess could be so shy? Gwayne indulged himself, trailing a path of kisses up the sensitive nape of your neck, savoring the way you shivered beneath his touch.
Precious thing, she truly is.
With a knowing smile, he lifted you effortlessly into his arms, and you gasped, clinging to his shoulders.
He laid you down upon the silk sheets, climbing in above you, and leaned down— immediately pressing his lips to yours in a searing kiss that tasted faintly of sweet wine.
“Mmh...” His mouth moved against yours with hunger, tangling his fingers into the locks of your hair. He kissed you until you felt the room spin— each time he pulled back a fraction of an inch, it was only to catch his breath before leaning down to devour your lips again, deeper and more bruising than before.
His toned hips pressed down firmly against yours, pinning you into the silk sheets. Through your thin linen shift, you could feel the hard, growing length of his bulge pressing against your thigh.
A quiet moan caught in your throat as he started rolling his hips, the friction sending a wave of unfamiliar heat straight to your core. Your fingers grasped the nape of his neck, and he groaned, a low vibration that you felt as much as you heard.
“Do you even know—” he rasped against your lips, still grinding against you, his voice tinged with unbridled desire, “how badly I want you?”
Just as the tension stretched to a breaking point, Gwayne suddenly went still. With a ragged exhale, he pulled away, leaving your lips tingling. He leveled his dark gaze on you, watching you panting for breath.
Lowering his head to rest his forehead against yours, he made no move to strip away the rest of your linen shift. He simply anchored his weight against you.
“Ser Gwayne…?” You blinked up at him, confusion clouding your eyes.
He let out a low chuckle, his fingers tracing the curve of your jaw.
“We have just survived the court of vipers today, my darling. Both of you and I need rest, nothing more.”
“But—”
His eyes then crinkled, his smile softened, looking at you as if he knew clearly what were currently going through your mind.
“What did I vow to you before the Seven?”
Wide-eyed, spellbound, with swollen lips of his making. Gwayne found his princess bride really endearing. Looking at you as he would a treasure, he recited the words he had spoken before the High Septon:
“I pray that my days will be long at your side. May your hand be in mine, by sun and by night...”
His dark blue eyes bored into yours with sincerity that made your chest tighten.
“Let our breaths twine and our blood become one, and even when our bones return to dust... may I find your soul still sworn to mine.”
Once again, he caught your heart with his sweet devotion. The way he was pure in his affections for you made you almost tear up.
Is this what it feels like to feel completely safe?
“There is no rush.” He traced a finger on your lips. “My only desire is to cherish you. With me, you are free to speak your mind— and as I am yours, you are entirely mine.”
He flashed you another sweet smile before rolling onto his side. He reached down to grasp the velvet blankets, pulling the covers all the way up over you both to block out the chill—tucking you securely under his arm and pulling you against his chest.
When you clung to him, he let out a giddy laugh, his hold instinctively tightening around you.
“Thank you, husband,” you whispered against his broad chest, nuzzling your face closer to him.
You received a tender kiss on the crown of your head in return.
For the most part, you were the happiest bride in the Seven Kingdoms.
Everyone in the realm, from the lowly stableboys to nobles, had offered their felicitations, your knight’s devotion was absolute and his tenderness behind closed doors a sanctuary against the court.
Yet, you hadn’t missed the way Ormund Hightower, the heir of Oldtown and Gwayne’s cousin, had eyed you at each and every turn.
His morning greetings had felt entirely too personal for your comfort, and the way he boldly stared at you made your skin crawl. You hadn’t seen fit to tell your husband just yet, choosing instead to give his cousin the benefit of the doubt.
Now, with the last day of your wedding festivities concluded, the gates of Red Keep were open as the lords and ladies of the realm prepared their wheelhouses to leave King’s Landing. Seeking an escape from the noise, you ducked into a cloistered walkway near the Godswood.
But you weren’t alone.
A shadow fell over the stone floor, and before you could turn, Ormund stepped out from behind a carved pillar, blocking your path in the deserted corridor.
“Your Grace,” he greeted with a cold smile.
“Ser Ormund.” Your voice adopting the icy tone you had practiced for years, as you began to question what he was truly after. “Should you not prepare to return to Oldtown? I imagined you would want to be ready for the long journey back to the Reach.”
Ormund didn’t answer right away. He closed the distance between you, tilted his head, a patronizing smile touching his lips.
“Preparations can wait. I merely wanted a private moment to bid my farewell to you.”
“You have had seven days of feasts to bid your farewells,” you retorted.
His smile only deepened. Instead of moving away, he stepped closer, trapping you between his frame and the pillar.
“Now, Princess... You know it as well as I do that we play a less than pretty game here.”
His gaze dropping to your collarbone before lifting to pin yours, with a look of a man who knew how much you weighted before the Iron Throne.
“Everything you lack in birthright is amply compensated by that pretty face of yours.” His blue eyes narrowed. “With a face like that, you could bewitch knights and lords across the Seven Kingdoms. A tragic shame... If only the timing had been right, you could have chosen me instead.”
A wave of disgust rushed through you. “You would do well to remember yourself. You are already wed.”
“A man never knows,” he replied in a sultry whisper, “when he might find himself in need of another wife.”
Ormund chuckled at your horrified expression. He leaned in closer, his eyes boring into yours with a terrifyingly casual entitlement, and in that moment you caught a striking smell on him.
Incense? Pomander? It was a potent smell, but surprisingly and jarringly pleasant.
“Why him?” he sneered, placing both arms against the wall on either side of your head. “An easy prey, is he?”
“He is kind,” you spat, your gaze hardening with defiance, willing yourself not to tremble before him. “A kinder man than anyone could ever be. Now I command you to let me pass, as I will not suffer you insulting my lord husband, Ormund Hightower.”
“Kind, is he now...? My cousin is the very paragon of a gentleman, and you thought you could bend him to your will, no?”
He leaned even closer to your ear that you could feel his breath—his scent filling your being, his blue eyes narrowing and burning into you with cold certainty.
“A word of counsel,” Ormund warned, his voice dropping to a menacing purr. “Gwayne remains a Hightower. The blood of Oldtown runs thick in his veins, and whatever sweet words he whispers in your bed… In the end, he will never betray his own house.”
The words echoed in your mind, striking a sudden chord of doubt— before nausea and fury flared within you.
With a sudden surge of strength, you shoved hard against Ormund’s chest, breaking his hold and causing him to stagger.
Without giving him the satisfaction of another word, you spun on your heel and swept past him, leaving him alone in the shadows of the corridor.
Throughout the seven days and nights of your wedding festivities, Gwayne Hightower had been a man utterly besotted, and he wasn’t reluctant in showing it before the court.
These were, without a doubt, the best days of his life. A dizzying happiness bestowed upon him by the Gods.
And patience was a virtue he possessed and would gladly practice if it meant your comfort. He had no wish to rush you and would like to give you as much time as you wanted, because after all, he knew deep-seated worries a new bride had regarding the marriage bed.
To that end, he had been standing by the hearth for a while now, stoking the coals so the chamber would be warm. When the heavy oak door finally creaked open and you stepped inside, Gwayne turned, already expecting you.
“Well, hello again, darling,” he greeted, an easy smile instantly gracing his features. “Are you ready to retire for the night?”
“Oh—!”
A startled gasp escaped you, and you nearly jumped out of your skin, completely caught off guard to find him waiting. Even from across the room, he caught the rigid hunch of your shoulders and the panic in your eyes. It took only a second to realize how you were shaking.
His smile vanished, replaced by a sudden, sharp concern.
“You look unwell,” Gwayne noted, frowning. Immediately letting go of the poker, he stood and crossed the chamber to you.
However, you were always a quick thinker. Meeting his gaze, you forced a placating smile. “No— It is just the wind, husband, and I am weary. I shall summon my handmaiden to help me undress and get ready for bed.”
Now there really was an unsettling weight gnawing at his chest. It was something he realized recently, but you were actually a wretched liar when caught unprepared. And now, you looked fragile, as though you desperately needed comfort.
“Has something happened?” He closed the remaining distance, his hands sliding up to catch you gently by the arm, drawing you closer to him.
His first instinct was to unquestionably provide you that comfort, and he was just about to pull you into the safety of his arms when—
His nostrils flared as he caught the fragrance clinging to you— and the air left his lungs. It was a scent he loathed with a visceral hatred, yet one he recognized almost instantly.
Gwayne went rigid, the blood turning to ice in his veins. A dark, sickening realization settled over him in a matter of seconds.
How?
Just how close had you been... to carry his scent so clearly upon your skin?
His gentle demeanor hardened into a sudden steel, and his voice dropped:
“Were you with Ormund?”
. . .
You wanted nothing more than to collapse in his arms.
You were really going to when suddenly you noticed how his face darkened. Gwayne’s blue eyes locked onto yours, demanding the truth you were trying to hide.
“Why were you with him?”
That striking smell, you realized. “No, I wasn’t—” you stammered, the words catching in your throat as panic flared inside you.
But Gwayne was far from convinced. He immediately let go of you, stepping back as if your very touch burned him. The sudden loss of his warmth made your heart ache with a sharp pain.
He looked utterly lost now, unable to look you in the eye. And worst of all, he looked terribly hurt.
“Nothing happened between us!” you blurted, desperate to bridge the sudden chasm between you. “We just exchanged a few words—”
“Do not lie to me. Ormund has a certain pomander he prefers—a blasted scent I would know anywhere. To carry that scent, you must have been so near to each other, so close that...”
He couldn’t even finish the sentence. The compromising image of you and his cruel cousin choked the words right out of his throat, his jaw clenching as he fought back the raw betrayal burning in his chest.
You, however, wouldn’t allow him to believe the worst. You forcibly threw yourself into his arms, desperate to mend the fracture between you—
“Gwayne, I swear this upon my mother’s name: I would never hurt you in such manner.”
You wrapped your arms around him tightly, burying your face against him. In that moment, even you found a fleeting peace in his warmth and listening to his erratic heartbeat. At first, his entire frame went completely stiff under your touch.
But as your vow settled over him... the tension broke, and he melted into your embrace in surrender, holding onto you with a crushing grip.
Oh. Such a sweet man, he is. The clarity almost made you cry—even when he thought he was in his darkest moment, he silently chose to believe you.
The two of you stayed like that for a while until a sudden, dark terror seemed to occur to him. His eyes snapped back to yours, searching your face for any sign of ruin.
“Did he force himself upon you?” he asked then, his voice uneven, almost trembling with rage at the mere thought. “Because if he did— if he laid a single unwanted hand on you, I will—”
“No!” you fiercely rejected the notion. “Nothing happened! I— I might have incited his displeasure, yes, but nothing more!”
Gwayne let out a relieved sigh, cradling your face with both of his hands to anchor himself, looking down at you like a lovelorn man. The ache in his chest subsided somewhat, and for a moment, he contemplated hearing more.
Ormund was not a kind man. He knew that better than anyone, having spent his childhood under his whims. And Ormund was ruthless and cunning— so if he had approached you, he undoubtedly had a purpose.
It might prove him a fool, and it would cost him another piece of his soul, yet Gwayne chose faith. Just as he had done a hundred times before.
“Whatever transpired between you, I do not wish to hear of it.”
You blinked at him, only to find him staring back with a grave expression.
“Just do not come near him again,” he warned, his voice a low, commanding growl. “Can you do that?”
You barely nodded when Gwayne leaned down and captured your lips in a punishing kiss—one born of relief, jealousy, and a fierce need to erase every trace of his cousin from your skin.
His hands, usually so practiced in their courtesy, lost their gentleness as he crushed you against him. He groaned against your mouth, breaking the kiss only to drag his wet lips down your throat, his teeth grazing the sensitive skin over your pulse point just roughly enough to make you gasp.
The sounds of your mingled breaths and sensual sighs filled the room. Your thoughts burned away by the sudden, suffocating heat of him. He backed you towards the high, velvet-curtained bed, and then swept you off your feet—
“Oh! Ser Gwayne!”
Just like your first night together as man and wife, he laid you down on the marital bed, but this time, he came down over you—his hands tearing at the laces of your dress, his breath hot on your jaw.
“Princess, I can’t—” His voice broke into a growl as he lost it, capturing your lips in another senseless kiss.
Somewhere in the feverish haze, he shrugged off his own shirt, letting out a grunt when he felt the burning touch of your fingertips wandering across his bare skin.
With a single, fluid pull, he rid you of your dress, and only then did he draw back, his dark eyes wide and dilated as he drank the sight of your naked form.
Every inch of you... is dazzlingly woman. How had the heavens deemed him worthy of a wife so breathtaking?
A primal urge flared within him— he had to mark you, to write his name upon your skin. Every lord in the Seven Kingdoms should know that he alone was husband to the princess.
Gwayne buried his face in your chest, suckling your breasts, swirling his tongue around the aching peaks until you arched off the mattress, breathless.
Fuck patience.
He roughly parted your thighs next to devour your sweet cunt with his mouth and lips, making you squirm to hold back your lewd moans. Within minutes, the intense coil inside you burst, your fingertips clawing at the bedsheets as your climax tore through you.
Fuck virtues.
Your head were still spinning in a daze as he proved just how masterful he was in pleasuring you. Before you could properly recover, Gwayne parted your knees wider and settled his weight over you.
“Will it hurt?” your voice came in a whisper, laced with such raw innocence when you realized what was to come that it immediately softened him.
“The first time always is,” Gwayne answered truthfully. “Scratch me, bleed me, scream if you must. Tell me if the pain outweighs the pleasure, and I will stop.”
He aligned himself against your entrance and with a push, inched himself inside you. You winced, a sharp cry escaping your lips at the foreign intrusion, your nails digging into the skin of his back.
“Hush, darling... I have you,” he whispered thickly. He held you tight, anchoring you against the mattress as he drove himself deeper. You trembled beneath him, half in tears and choked by little gasps of pain, your body struggling to accommodate his sheer size.
So tight. Gwayne really was on the verge of losing it when he realized he had broken your maidenhead. Still a maid, and I have claimed her.
When he sheathed himself completely, your body stretched against an agonizing fullness and more tears fell from your eyes. Gwayne held himself perfectly still, giving your body a moment to adjust to his length, before pressing a tender kiss to your lips to soothe you and beginning to move.
As his hips drove into yours with bruising thrusts, the initial sting quickly melted away, replaced by a deep, rolling friction that felt incredibly good, drawing whimpers from the back of your throat.
You looked sinful beneath him. His hands slid up from the mattress to cup your face, his thumbs wiping away the stray tears at the corners of your eyes even as his lower body dictated a merciless pace.
There was only the heat, the slick friction binding you together, and a man utterly possessed.
“You are mine,” Gwayne rasped against your skin, his voice a ragged edge of pure devotion and dark triumph. “From this night... until my last.”
The pleasure wound tighter and tighter within you— until the dam broke, shattering you in a blinding release. You cried out his name, your body clamping tightly around his length.
Fuck.
The pulsing squeeze of your walls was the final blow to his restraints— your husband groaned aloud, as he thrusted into you one last time, before collapsing against you and spilling his seeds inside your womb.
You awoke before him.
With the morning light filtered through the velvet curtains, you observed your husband’s serene, sleeping face. Free from his courtly mask and the heat from the night before, Gwayne looked peaceful, almost like a boy.
Even in sleep, he had one arm on your waist. His red hair was a mess against the sheets, and the blanket barely covered him, exposing the impressive breadth of his back—and the faint red marks where your nails had scratched him last night.
Sweet man, and he’s all mine.
A wave of tenderness washed over you, a deep-seated realization sank that you were truly his woman now. Reaching out, you gently cupped his jaw, the pad of your thumb tracing his cheek.
At your touch, his eyelashes soon fluttered. His eyes blinked open, unfocused with sleep.
“Good morrow, husband,” you fixed a sweet smile, and he blinked blue eyes at you, staring at you in a hazy daze for a moment as his mind worked to bridge the gap between his dreams and reality.
Then, a soft sigh escaped him. He reached out, his strong arms wrapping around your waist to pull you against him, burying his face into the crook of your neck.
“Forgive me,” he murmured in a drawl, his voice muffled against your skin.
You blinked. “What for?”
“I have conducted myself in a manner entirely unbefitting of your husband.”
“Oh?”
“I was far from gentle with you,” he mumbled into your neck. “When you have asked it from me.”
He really thought that? A giggle bubbled up from your chest, the light sound causing him to curl into you even further, hiding his face like a guilty boy.
“I am perfectly well,” you laughed, hugging him close to your chest. “A bit sore, perhaps, but quite intact.”
You stroked his red hair, and he clung to you a little tighter, as if you were the only anchor he needed. However, you were in the mood of being mischievous.
“Although, I must confess, I never knew you had that side in you, husband.” Your lips curling into a smirk as you looked down at him. “I must admit I doubted its existence.”
Gwayne went utterly still in your embrace. Slowly, he pulled back, looking at you with an expression of pure despondence. Then as though he couldn’t bear to look at your face, he groaned, clenching his jaw.
“I am glad my utter lack of composure is a source of amusement for the princess.”
His cheeks had started to redden, and your heart swelled. Reaching out, you caught his jaw with one hand and stole a quick kiss, catching him off guard.
“Am I not your wife?” you teased. “What is there to be so flustered about?”
“Are you secretly a wanton?” Gwayne fired back, a dimpled, shy smile breaking through his lingering embarrassment. “You certainly seem fond of kissing me first.”
Would a man so devoted to you not choose you, when he is faced by the impossible choice between his wife and his house?
Mayhaps that was a question that would find its answer in the years to come.
“This is how you kiss, darling.”
And with that, he leaned in and captured your lips in a chaste yet deep kiss. The shyness that had flushed his cheeks moments ago vanished, replaced by the effortless grace of a man who knew exactly how to cherish his wife.
When he finally parted from you, he didn’t pull away far. He rested his forehead against yours, his breath mingling with your own as the early morning sun caught the rich blue of his eyes, and his grin was the sweetest as he gazed at you.
What is that light shining through the window? It matters less, because you are the sun, and you are in his arms.
tagging @luvweezer @j3ons4 @heavenlypuggs @salinaiacono6 @thelastemzy @meowingtotheoldies @violetrainbow412-blog @reading-it-all as per request <3
a princess wed to a dashing knight should be living a fairytale—but gwayne hightower is also the son of the schemer who would soon plunge the realm into civil war. how long can you resist his charms... when he proves time and again that his affection is as genuine as his honor?
genre/warnings:
arranged marriage, unrequited love, hurt/comfort, yearning, jealousy, mentions of injury & blood, fluff and lots of kissing afterwards, sunshine!gwayne and grumpy!reader, political drama, targaryen!reader (reader is rhaenyra's younger sister), spoilers! takes place in season 1 of house of the dragon
notes:
gif by @/bladeofdreadfort. wc. 4.5k ! hotd s3 is finally here and so does my man gwayne <3 i really loved writing this so i hope you’ll enjoy it!
For the longest time, Gwayne had known that the matter of his marriage were not his to ponder. As the son of the Hand of the King, his future was a tapestry woven by him in a series of cunning, calculated moves.
Yet, he had never truly expected to be betrothed to you—a princess of the realm.
The young princess for the queen’s brother. By every measure, it was a masterful stroke of politics and his father had once again outdone himself. After binding his sister to the king, it was now his turn to seek the heart of the realm’s most coveted maiden after the Princess Rhaenyra.
However, to Gwayne, you were more than just a political alliance. You were a paragon of beauty, the girl haunting his dreams, the princess who has stolen his heart—
But seven hells, were you also one hard lady to entice.
Every charming smile he threw your way was met with an arched, unimpressed brow. Every poetic compliment he rehearsed tasted like ash and shattered against your coldness. You didn’t swoon like the ladies at the tourney grounds, nor did you soften at his obvious attempts to woo you.
Instead, you looked at him as if you could see right through the nervous man underneath.
Your assessing gaze was currently fixed on him from the shade of the courtyard gallery. Down in the dirt, Gwayne was sweating through his padded doublet, trying his absolute best to look formidable as his sword clashed against his squire’s shield—because he knew you were watching.
He has to look good. Your wedding was in three weeks, so he was fighting to impress—determined to give you a show of how your betrothed was as dashing as the realm claimed him to be.
With theatrical flair, he executed an aggressive sequence before driving his squire back with a heavy strike, deftly sweeping the poor lad’s legs out from under him, and sending him sprawling into the dirt with a breathless thud.
Breathing heavily, Gwayne smoothly rested the point of his sword near the fallen boy’s chest in a classic pose of victory.
“You are just dead,” he declared with his signature grin, before turning to where you were.
You leaned against the stone balustrade, looking down at him with an expression of mild, patronizing amusement. He flashed you a hopeful, boyish grin that begged for even a shred of your approval.
And as if deciding to grace him with your presence, you descended down the stone stairs. Gwayne’s smile widened, and he met you halfway as you reached the bottom.
Ignoring the staring stableboys, he dipped his head and took your hand, placing a kiss on it.
“Princess,” he greeted, his dark blue eyes meeting yours with an excited crinkle.
“An impressive display, Ser Gwayne,” you replied, smoothly pulling your hand back from his grasp. He was giddy, about to thank you for the compliment, when—
“I must commend your passion. It takes a truly remarkable knight to exert such effort against a boy half his size who is actively paid to lose to him.”
Gwayne winced slightly, but the grin quickly returned to his face, refusing to let your sharp tongue deter him.
“A knight, no matter the age, must practice for all manner of foes. It shall be a good lesson for my squire to learn,” he countered softly. He had always been a naturally courteous man, but he had been practicing an extra measure of gentleness ever since the betrothal was announced, even when you remained frosty.
He hoped that you would recognize it—that you would see he was willing to bend his pride just for you.
However, you merely lifted your chin higher, your eyes flashing with a challenge.
“Is that so? My, what a chivalrous soul you are. I suppose I shall sleep soundly knowing you are defending the realm with your immense prowess and formidable army of squires.”
One thing he could never truly understand, though... he hadn’t asked for this match any more than you had, yet why did you look at him as you would a liar?
And it hurts because... he remembers how the more innocent, younger you, who had wiped blood from his face, hadn’t looked at him as you do now.
“We are to be married in no less than a moon,” he reminded you, still with a smile. “Tell me, Princess... what must a man do to earn a genuine compliment from his bride?”
You held his gaze for a beat, letting the silence stretch just long enough to watch the slight twitch in his jaw. Then, a devastatingly sweet smile graced your lips as you tilted your head.
“Compliments are but wind, my good ser. If we are to marry soon anyways, what use would flattering you with empty words do?”
Gwayne let out a defeated chuckle. “I shall just continue striving to become a man worthy of your hand, then.”
You had just insulted him and mocked his swordsmanship in the same breath, and yet, somehow, he still found himself tethered to you still.
What a fool he was.
He didn’t give up just like that, of course. Gifts was also Gwayne’s language of affection.
He had commissioned a seven-pointed star necklace for you in Oldtown, crafted from the finest silver and diamond. He had watched his late mother and sister find such profound comfort in it, and so he had believed it would make a fine gift for you.
Yet, now that he presented the gleaming jewelry to you, you were rendered silent.
“You do not like it,” he realized, a note of disappointment building through his usual confidence.
“It is exquisite. Truly,” you started, your voice gentle but lacking the reverence he had anticipated. “But... you must not expect me to wear it often.”
“Is it the design? If it offends your sensibilities, I can have it redone, or—”
“I assure you, I know your intentions are kind,” you looked at him, a certain sternness in your eyes. “It is just a matter of preference, is all. I treasure this necklace from my mother rather greatly, and wearing it is how I keep her close to me.”
The tragic death of Queen Aemma was not so easily forgotten, least of all when you resembled her so much. Gwayne’s smile faltered, the enthusiasm in his eyes dimming when his gaze found the sapphire necklace of Arryn falcon on your neck, a heirloom passed down.
He looked down at the silver star resting in the wooden box, suddenly finding it so plain, before forcing himself to meet your gaze again.
“I just want you to know that... you are in my thoughts, constantly,” he murmured, his gaze rising to meet yours again. “Whenever I see something I consider beautiful, I think of you. I want you to have it. You should know I have no underlying intentions other than that.”
You gave him an appreciative nod, pursing your lips together. “Your kind thoughts are much appreciated.”
So he had failed, again. Sigh.
What better way to impress your betrothed and prove to the entire realm that you were worthy of her hand than by claiming victory at the King’s nameday tourney?
Even you would at least bestow a real smile upon him. That was what Gwayne was after.
Or at least, it was until his gaze drifted to the edge of the battlement grounds where the knights were assembling. There, he saw you.
With Criston Cole.
The sight struck him. You, who usually looked at him with indifference, were attentive, your eyes bright in a way Gwayne had never managed to make them. Cole, in turn, had a reserved smile, his attention entirely locked onto you.
It could have been anyone but Criston—the Dornishman!—Cole. Why him?!
A sharp spike of resentment flared in his chest. He decided right then and there that this cannot stand, and marched towards you both.
“Good day, Ser Criston,” Gwayne greeted with a forced smile, his voice dripping with a courtly cheer that didn’t quite reach his eyes.
Cole returned his greeting, and he turned to you then. “My betrothed, fancy to have found you here. You shouldn’t have to sully yourself with the dirt.”
“I was merely wishing Ser Criston luck in the lists.” As always, the corners of your lips curled into that faux smile whenever facing him. “The competition looks fierce today.”
What about him? You hadn’t thought of wishing him, your own groom, luck?
“Fierce for some, mayhaps,” Gwayne nodded, his smile sharpening as he took another step forward, deliberately cutting off Criston Cole’s line of sight to you. He reached out, his gauntleted hand gently but firmly taking yours.
“But I sure do not fear a crowd of knights of modest beginnings and second sons. And I have hoped that I might find you in the stands later, and you would bestow upon me your favor to assure me of my victory.”
He looked down at you, the forced arrogance in his eyes momentarily cracked. He wanted you to look at him the way you had just looked at Cole, really.
But cruel, relentless you never granted it so easily.
“Your romantic sensibilities are commendable, ser.” You let out a soft sigh, as if lamenting, “but victory is still guaranteed by skill and the favor of the Seven, and not merely from a scrap of silk.”
The rejection was subtle, but in the presence of Criston Cole, it felt like a public execution.
“It is said even a scrap of favor from one’s bride can turn the tide of many battles,” Gwayne replied, his voice dropping an octave as the last traces of courtly cheer evaporated. “Unless, of course, your favor has already been promised to someone else?”
His eyes flicked towards Cole, searching for a reason to draw steel before the tourney even began. And that Dornish wretch had the gall to look at him in the eyes and retorted:
“May the best knight win, ser.”
Your betrothed had become terribly displeased and you knew it. Your hollow smile deepened, you stepped forward and smoothly slid your hand into the crook of his arm.
“No, no. You are free to ask me for it later, of course, my dear.”
Gwayne knew better that the honeyed words held no real affection. Yet, like a moth drawn to a flame, he couldn’t help but fall for it each and every time.
You held his leash, and you knew exactly how far you could play with and stretch it. But as he looked at you, a quiet ache settled in his soul.
Is it truly so wrong of him to seek your heart? How much longer would he have to endure this torment, giving everything while his affections remained completely unreturned?
“From today to the day we breathe our last, all that I am is yours.”
That was the first thing he told you when the betrothal was announced. In a den of vipers, Gwayne Hightower was entirely his own man.
He didn’t possess the calculating ambition of his father, who viewed every living soul as a piece in his game of thrones. Nor was he prudent like his sister, Queen Alicent, whose motto in life was duty and sacrifice.
You know that. You really knew that your chosen betrothed was everything but unkind. He was everything the songs promised a knight should be— genuine, posh, with a touch of arrogance that made him charming. He held you in high regard, and his attempts to make an impression on you were sweet.
Despite how you behaved around him, the truth was... it took everything in you not to fall for Ser Gwayne Hightower.
But he is still Otto’s son. You hated the Lord Hand with every fiber of your being—the man’s thirst for power had already forced your childhood companion Alicent into your father’s bed, turned your sister Rhaenyra into a scheming cynic, and your own betrothal to Gwayne was just another piece of his grand design.
However, watching the tourney unfold from the royal box, your thoughts swirled with guilt and anxiety. In the end, he hadn’t asked for your favor at all. Ironically, his sudden silence unsettled you far more than his persistence ever had.
Looking back on your interactions, the weight of your biting marks pressed heavily against your chest. You had rejected him so many times, using your faux smiles and sharp wit as shields. Every time you remembered the look of hurt that crossed his face before he masked it with a patient smile, a fresh wave of guilt washed over you.
Did he deserve to be punished just for pursuing you? Was it fair to make him pay for his father’s sins?
Down in the dirt, Gwayne rode beautifully, unseating two seasoned knights from the Reach and splitting lances with a Lannister to thunderous applause from the crowd. For a moment, watching his silver and green armor gleam in the sunlight, a spark of pride flared in your chest.
Then, Ser Criston Cole rode onto the field.
The tension between the two men was palpable even from the high stands. They charged— one lance shattered, then a second. By the third pass, it was clear it was a matter of pride.
And on the fourth pass, the collision was catastrophic.
With a terrifying crack that echoed across the grounds, Cole’s lance struck dead center. Gwayne was violently unseated, flung from his saddle to hit the earth with a sickening crash.
A collective gasp sucked the air from the stands. Through the rising dust, you saw your betrothed lying completely still. Cole’s lance hadn’t just broken— it had compromised his armor. His steel breastplate was shattered to pieces, the shards visibly lodged into his chest, dark blood already pooling through the fractures.
Your breath hitched, your hand flying to your mouth in horror.
Six years ago, a similar scene had paralyzed your heart the very same way. Blind to the rules of propriety, you bolted from the royal box. Pushing past lords and ladies, you sprinted down into the arena—desperate to reach him.
The maesters and several squires had already swarmed him, unbuckling the undamaged pieces of his armor with hurried hands. Gwayne was propped up against a wooden barrier, half-conscious, his head lolling to the side as his eyes struggled to hold focus.
“Will he be alright?” your voice cracked, almost shrill, the composed facade of a princess shattered as you hovered over the maesters working on him. “Tell me he will be alright.”
“The steel hasn’t pierced the heart, Princess, but we must move him to immediately to extract the shards,” one of them mumbled, wrapping a temporary cloth around the wound to stem the bleeding.
Gwayne let out a low, guttural groan at the pressure, his eyelids fluttering. Through the haze of pain, he recognized your voice. He knew you were there.
Driven by a sudden, overwhelming surge to comfort him, you dropped to your knees beside him. Your hands were trembling as you reached out, using the hem of your sleeve to wipe away the grime and blood that smeared his pale cheek.
But before your fingers could trace his jawline, Gwayne’s gauntleted hand came up. With a sudden burst of remaining strength, he swatted your hand away—
“Do not touch me,” he rasped.
The words were raw and bitter, dripping with an icy venom you had never heard from him before.
. . .
Gwayne refused to meet your gaze. He pressed his eyes shut, his jaw clenched so tightly the bone practically strained against his skin.
It wasn’t just the physical agony tearing him apart. It was the suffocating, absolute humiliation.
He had lost. He had been unseated and laid low in the dirt in front of the entire realm—and worse, in front of Criston Cole. He couldn’t bear to see the pity in your eyes. He couldn’t bear to look at the woman he loved and see confirmation that he was exactly what you always thought of him: unworthy.
“I’m— fine,” he choked out then. “So... go back to the Keep.”
It was funny how this was the same thing that had happened to him six years ago, during the Heir’s Tourney. He had been brutally unseated by Daemon Targaryen then, and just like now, you had come running to him, wiping the blood from his broken nose with your kerchief.
He fell in love with you then... and he has been in love with you ever since.
The girl holding his heart was a princess, and he had never dared to hope for more, never dreaming his conniving father would actually arrange your hand for him. He had thought it a blessing.
But his pursuit of you the past three moons had yielded nothing but a bitter truth— you despised him.
So he preferred to choke on the blinding pain, to let it consume him entirely, rather than suffer the indignity of your comfort.
You are in love with him.
You had spent weeks trying to resent the circumstances that led to your marriage with Otto Hightower’s son, reminding yourself over and over that he had fractured your family, sowing seeds of rebellion that would break once Alicent’s son came to age, and it would spell disaster upon you all—
But the wounded knight with broken nose six years ago had long since owned a part of your heart, and one week without Gwayne Hightower persistent on your heel, you had found yourself... sad.
“Mrawgh...”
“I’m not lonely,” you mumbled petulantly, brushing a hand against Grey Ghost’s silver scales as the dragon curled up, blinking his golden eyes shut to rest.
To occupy yourself, you spent the days with your dragon in the Dragonpit. Tending to Grey Ghost made the long hours pass faster— he was a recluse and not keen on flying often, but his quiet presence matched your somber mood.
Leaving him to his slumber, you walked away lost in your thoughts, entirely failing to notice how slippery the stone ledge had become.
Your foot caught on a heavy iron ring embedded in the floor. The world tilted as you stumbled backwards, losing your footing entirely. You braced for a painful impact against the stone floor, but a pair of strong arms wrapped securely around your waist, arresting your descent.
A sharp, ragged gasp left your savior’s lips. As you stabilized, you realized your hands had instinctively braced against his chest—pressing right over the bandages of the fresh wound.
“Steady there,” the redhead managed, a strained smile tight on his lips as he gently set you back on your feet. His green tunic made you realize who he was—
“Gwayne!” you breathed. Your hands hovered over him, trembling, almost terrified to touch him again. “Why are you—your wound! I didn’t mean to—”
“I am fine, truly,” he assured you, his voice softening as he offered a warm, comforting smile. “It is but a scratch, Princess. It takes more than a clumsy tumble from you to injure me.”
Just like a hundred times before, Gwayne Hightower sought you out. You could see the sheen of sweat on his forehead and how he looked pale still—
From today to the day we breathe our last, all that I am is yours.
“You are supposed to be resting!” Your voice rose despite yourself. “Why are you here?!”
This wasn’t what you wanted to tell him. You wanted to tell him a lot of other things! Like he was a fool, and that you would forbid him to enter the lists once you two were wed, that you couldn’t bear the thought of losing him—
His blue eyes crinkled with that familiar kindness as he reached out, softly tucking a stray strand of your loose hair behind your ear.
“If I wasn’t here, then you would take a fall.” His voice a soothing balm to your frayed nerves. “I can’t very well let my betrothed hurt herself before our big day, can I?”
This was the first time since King Viserys announced your betrothal three moons ago that you looked genuinely worried for him. It made something inside him burst with joy, even if it was tinged with a bitter aftertaste.
Gwayne’s thumb gently brushed across the back of your hand that was still pressed against his chest.
“Tell me... Is this the only way I could truly have your attention? Must I be grievously injured, a step away from Death’s door, for you to look at me like this?”
Your eyes widened by a fraction. Precious, precious girl. He chuckled softly, a teasing glint brightened his eyes.
Just this once, could he be allowed to be just a little bit cruel?
“Even if you keep looking at me with those beautiful eyes...” he whispered, his smile turning a little wistful, “...my heart might just run out, one of these days.”
He gave you one last, kind smile—a look of affection that no longer held expectations, or reeked of the politics that bound your families. Then, he gently gripped your hand, pulling it away from him before turning on his heel to leave you to your own devices.
When your fingers fell limp into the cold air, a stinging realization pierced through you like a dagger:
Is this how he feels? Is this what he endures every time I evade him? How has he survived it over and over?
As his warmth retreated into the shadows of the Dragonpit, something sharp tore deep inside your chest.
You didn’t want him to go. The walls you had spent weeks building to protect your heart against the Hightower name crumbled into dust. Your eyes burned with tears that blurred his retreating figure.
He was nearly out of the pit when you gathered your skirts, abandoning your pride, and ran after him.
“Ser Gwayne!”
Before he could turn back, you lunged, throwing your pride and your fears to the wind. You crashed into his back, your arms wrapping tightly around his waist, burying your face against his spine. He stiffened, almost flinching—
But then he heard you sob.
“Princess...?” he asked softly. His tone shifted, turning from startled confusion to a protective concern as he carefully turned around within your embrace. He reached up, gently tilting your chin up, only to find your cheeks flushed and wet with tears.
Realizing you were truly, genuinely weeping, Gwayne’s breath hitched in his throat.
He didn’t think. He didn’t let past rejections dictate him. He immediately wrapped his arms around you, pulling you close against his uninjured side.
“Shh, please do not weep,” he said in your ear, his own voice suddenly thick with emotion as he rocked you slightly. “Darling... please.”
Darling. Why did the word sound so devastatingly sweet in your ears? As you clung to him, you realized with absolute certainty that you wanted him to call you that for the rest of your days.
As he held you, feeling the warmth of your hands anchoring yourself to him, the pieces finally fell into place:
Has she... returned my feelings?
When your sobs finally quieted and your breathing turned calmer, you gently pulled back just enough to look up at him. Your eyes met his, and an ache settled in your chest.
He was such a beautiful man. Red hair, blue eyes, with ghost of dimples— still the very same wounded knight you had secretly harbored affections for with all those years ago.
Driven by a clear wave of clarity, you didn’t wait for him to speak. Reaching up, you stood on your toes and pulled him down by his collar—
—and pressed your lips to his.
Gwayne went rigid at your sudden boldness. But as your fingers tangled into his soft hair, any lingering shock vanished. With a low groan, he leaned into you, capturing your mouth in a kiss that felt like the bursting of a dam.
He drank in your sighs, his lips moving against yours with a desperate longing, as if he were trying to memorize the taste of you. He pulled you closer, his hands tilting your head back, anchoring you to him.
“You really are—” he growled against your mouth, his breath hot and ragged, “my utter undoing, Princess.”
Before the words could even fully register, you gasped as he gathered you up and hoisted you backwards, setting you down onto the broad stone railing.
Gwayne stepped between your thighs, pinning you to the ledge as his mouth descended on yours once more, even more ravenous than before. The kiss became a blur of lips, tongues, and breathless gasps—
His hands left your face to map the lines of your body, his palm sliding down the column of your throat to the curve of your shoulders. In his mind’s eye, he was already stripping away the heavy, suffocating layers of your gown, picturing the soft, aching swell of your breasts and the intoxicating dip of your waist.
In less than a week... as soon as you swear your oaths before the Seven, he would be graced by that sight.
Gwayne dragged his lips down from your mouth, leaving a trail of scorching kisses along your jawline before burying his face in the crook of your neck.
“Ser Gwayne—” your voice came hitched, and that what brought him back to reality.
He bit softly at the sensitive skin there, swallowing the fire that was about to consume him. When he finally pulled away to breathe, his lips lingered against yours.
“Well, you did kiss me first, Princess,” Gwayne murmured, his eyes twinkling, voice delightfully raspy as his arms settled loosely around your waist. “If I had known a broken rib would finally get you to kiss me, I would have marched up to Grey Ghost and asked him to toss me by the tail weeks ago.”
“Please don’t,” you giggled, circling your arms around his neck.
“Ah, but think of the romance— a dashing knight, battered and bruised, crawling back from the Dragonpit just to collapse into his bride’s arms.”
A breathless laugh escaped your lips, giving way to a very sweet, genuine smile. To Gwayne Hightower, this was the prettiest you had ever been, and his heart throbbed.
Oh, so she does, he realized, a quiet reverence settling into his soul. She does return my affections.
Gwayne leaned in, pressing a soft kiss to your forehead, finally certain that his heart was safe in your hands.
“You might not know it,” he whispered, “but I have been in love with you for a very long time.”
You looked up at him, your eyes bright with unshed tears, and he met your gaze with a look of such devotion it stole the breath from your lungs.
“So let me say this once again. From before, now and until the day we breathe our last, all that I am... is yours.”
In that moment, you couldn’t have known that the realm would soon be plunged into a senseless civil war, pitting your sister against his in a dance of dragons and blood. You couldn’t have foreseen the ashes, the betrayals, or the heavy price the Hightower green and the Targaryen black would have to pay.
None of that matters right now. All you wanted was to lose yourself in his embrace and savor the fragile perfection of your wedding to the man of your dreams... for as long as it would last.
A compliment gone too far, attention too sharp and Ormund Hightower does not hesitate to show you exactly who you belong to.
WARNINGS; sexual content, explicit sexual content, possessive behaviour, rough sex, oral (female receiving), jealous!ormund, explicit language, minors dni, because I am not responsible for your media consumption.
The Ormund Hightower no soul asked for. I blame the deliciousness that is James Norton.
The air in the quiet chambers was thick with the lingering tension of the evening. Prince Aemond’s words still echoed in your mind, the way his pale eye had lingered on you, the low, appreciative rumble of his voice when he praised your wit and the sharpness of your mind. It had been a daring compliment, one that bordered on flirtation, and you had felt the heat rise in your cheeks under the Prince's intense gaze.
But the moment the heavy oak doors clicked shut behind you, the atmosphere shifted from courtly elegance to raw, possessive hunger.
Ormund didn't say a word at first, he didn't need to. He gripped your arm with a firmness that bordered on bruising, spinning you around and shoving you back against the cold stone wall.
His eyes, usually so composed, were dark with a jealous fire. He had seen the way Aemond looked at you; he had heard the Prince's admiration, and it had ignited a need in him to reclaim what was his.
“The Prince finds you sharp, does he?” Ormund hissed, his voice a low growl against your ear. He pressed his body flush against yours, his hardness straining against his trousers, pinning you firmly. “He admires your mind. But he forgets that every inch of you, your thoughts, your breath, your fucking body, belongs to me.”
He didn't give you time to answer. His hand dove downward, ripping your skirts upward and shoving your undergarments aside with a rough, impatient tug. He forced your legs apart, hoisting one of your thighs up over his hip to expose you completely to the dim light of the room.
Ormund dropped to his knees with a suddenness that made you gasp, he didn't tease, he dove straight in. His tongue lashed out, hitting your clit with a forceful, wet stroke that made your back arch off the wall. You let out a sharp cry, your fingers digging into his shoulders as he began to eat you out with a feral intensity.
He sucked your clit deep into his mouth, swirling his tongue around the sensitive nub while his fingers shoved themselves inside you, stretching your walls.
He was eating you like a starving man, his face smeared with your juices, making loud, wet slurping sounds that filled the silence of the chamber.
He wanted you to feel the desperation of his claim, to know that while Aemond might admire your mind, Ormund owned the heat between your legs.
You were shaking, your breath coming in ragged sobs as he drove you toward the edge and just as you felt the first wave of orgasm crashing over you, Ormund pulled away, leaving you dripping and desperate.
“Look at me,” he commanded, standing up and quickly shedding his breeches.
His cock was thick and pulsing, fully erect and leaking pre-cum. He didn't use any lubricant other than the mess he had just made of you. He grabbed your hips, lifting you slightly and driving his cock deep into your pussy in one singular, violent thrust.
You screamed into the quiet of the room, the sudden fullness stretching you to my limit. He didn't slow down. He began to fuck you with a rhythmic, punishing force, his hips slamming against yours with a wet, slapping sound. Each thrust was a statement of ownership, driving deep enough to hit your cervix, claiming every hidden part of you.
“Who do you belong to?” he groaned, his voice strained as he hammered into you.
“You... Ormund!” You gasped, your head tossing back against the wall.
“Say it again!” He gripped your throat lightly, not enough to choke, but enough to make you feel his dominance. He accelerated his pace, his cock sliding in and out of your soaking wet pussy with friction that set you on fire.
“I am yours! I belong to you!” The admission seemed to break the last of his restraint. Ormund let out a guttural roar, his movements becoming frantic and wild. He buried himself deep inside you one last time, his body shuddering violently as he pumped load after load of hot cum deep into your womb.
He stayed there for a long moment, panting heavily, his forehead pressed against yours, ensuring you felt every drop of his seed filling you up, marking you from the inside out. The Prince's compliments were forgotten; there was only the scent of sex and the crushing weight of Ormund's possession.
“Fucking righteous cunt thought he could compliment my wife,” he murmured against your throat, jaw clenching, “I will make this entire fucking keep learn just who the fuck you belong to,” Ormund's teeth sank into your shoulder with a sharp, possessive bite, his growl vibrating against your skin as he then hauled you against his chest, pushing you towards the bed, “Prince or fucking not, I'll have him eat is fucking words, rider of the largest fucking dragon or not, his fire will not touch you.”
Ormund pushed you unto the bed, flipping you onto your stomach and he yanked your hips up, forcing your ass high while your face pressed into the sheets. His cock, still slick from the load he'd just pumped into you, slammed back inside your pussy in one brutal thrust.
“Let them hear you, let him hear how I am the one making you come undone,” he gripped your waist hard enough to bruise, pounding into you from behind with savage force, each slam drove his length to the hilt, his balls slapping against your clit as he used your body like it was made for nothing else.
Hot cum from his first release leaked out around his shaft with every thrust, coating your thighs in thick, sticky trails.
“Mine,” he snarled against your ear, his hips snapping forward without mercy. “Say it again. Tell me who this cunt belongs to.” His hand fisted in your hair, yanking your head back as he fucked you deeper, harder, claiming every inch of your soaked hole.
“I am yours, Ormund, fuck,” your fingers fisted into the sheets as your mouth parted, breathless and heart pounding with each insistent thrust that made the bed shake, “it was only a compliment, nothing more.”
He shook his head, hammering into you as his free hand reached under you to pinch and twist your nipple, rolling the stiff peak between his fingers while he drove you toward another shattering peak, “You are so oblivious, so fucking blind to the way men stare at you. I should not have let you come with me,” he murmured, hands now gripping unto your hips as he continued to unravel you.
“You commanded me to come,” you muffled the scream that tumbled from your mouth, head tilting to the side as you now watched your husband pound into you over your shoulder, “you commanded that I come with you, husband.”
“Then I'll spend every godsdamned moment between your legs, if only so to remind those that I am not a man who shares what is his in any manner.”
The wet sounds of his cock stretching you filled the room, mixed with the slap of skin on skin and his ragged breathing. He didn't slow down, didn't ease up, he kept railing you from behind, determined to flood you again before the night was over.
His hair, now damp and clinging against his forehead, made your cunt clench tighter around his cock and a smug smirk fluttered across your face, “Green is a colour that suits you most sinfully, Ormund.”
Ormund’s smirk vanished, replaced by a flash of raw, possessive hunger. The mention of the color; the color of the Hightowers, the color of the ambition that fueled the court, seemed to snap something inside him. He didn't just thrust, he snapped his hips forward with a brutal, jarring force, his cock slamming deep into your cervix with a wet, heavy thud.
“You think this is a game?” he growled, his voice a low, dangerous rumble against your ear. He gripped your hips so hard his fingers left bruises, anchoring you in place as he began to rail you with a savage intensity. Each strike was a claim, a violent assertion of ownership that left you breathless and shaking.
The fury in him was palpable, a storm brewed from the lingering image of Prince Aemond’s lingering glances and the way the Prince had looked at you as if you were a prize to be stolen.
Ormund had always been a man of controlled passion, but the threat of competition had awakened a primal, territorial beast he had long since buried. He didn't want to just satisfy you; he wanted to mark you, to fill you so completely that there was no room left for any other man's thoughts or desires.
With a sudden, powerful movement, he yanked you backward, pulling your spine flush against his chest. He didn't stop the friction, keeping his cock buried deep while he twisted his body to capture your lips.
His mouth crashed against yours, his tongue invading your mouth in a mirroring of the assault below, aggressive, demanding, and absolute. He tasted of salt and desperation, his breath hitching as he felt your cunt pulsing and clamping tight around him. “Mine,” he groaned into the kiss, the word vibrating through your entire frame. “Every inch of you... fucking mine.”
He gave one final, devastatingly deep thrust, his entire body locking up as he hit his limit. A guttural shout tore from his throat as he came, a hot, thick torrent of cum flooding your womb, filling you to the brim. He shuddered violently, his heart hammering against your back, his cock pulsing inside you as he emptied himself completely, claiming you with every drop of his seed.
But as the peak of the orgasm subsided, the brutality evaporated, replaced by a sudden, aching tenderness. Ormund didn't pull away. Instead, he shifted his weight, his movements becoming agonizingly slow. He began to grind his hips into you with a rhythmic, devoted slowness, his cock sliding through the slurry of his own cum and your juices.
He began to kiss the nape of your neck, his lips soft and lingering, his breath warm against your skin. The contrast was dizzying, the man who had just been railing you like an animal was now cradling you as if you were the most precious thing in the Seven Kingdoms.
He whispered fragmented vows of devotion, his voice thick with emotion, grinding into you with a steady, loving pressure that targeted every sensitive nerve.
The slow, deliberate friction began to build a different kind of heat, a swirling vortex of pleasure that felt deeper and more intimate than the violence of before. Your walls clamped around him in rhythmic waves, and as he continued to grind into you with that unwavering devotion, you felt yourself shatter. You came undone, your body arching and sobbing as a powerful orgasm ripped through you, leaving you limp and trembling in his possessive, loving embrace.
Ormund's lips brushed yours again, softer this time, the kiss lingering with a quiet apology woven into every press. His breath came warm against your mouth as he murmured, “Forgive me. I was too rough with you.”
His hands eased their grip on your hips, fingers stroking the marks he'd left behind in soothing circles. He stayed buried inside you, his cock still half-hard and slick with the mess he'd pumped deep, but his thrusts had slowed to nothing. Instead he held you close, chest pressed to your back, and began to rock his hips in the gentlest of motions, just enough to keep you connected while the tenderness took over.
“I saw the way he looked at you,” he whispered against your ear, voice low and rough with leftover heat. “Aemond's eye on you... it woke something I thought I'd buried. But I shouldn't have taken it out on you like that.”
Another slow kiss landed at the corner of your jaw, then lower, along the curve of your neck. His tongue traced the skin he had earlier bitten, now soothing it with careful laps.
He pulled back just enough to turn your face toward him, claiming your mouth once more in a deep, unhurried kiss that tasted of salt and regret. His tongue moved slower now, exploring rather than invading, while below he ground his hips forward in tiny, devoted circles that dragged his cock against your swollen walls. The wet sounds of his cum shifting inside you filled the quiet between kisses.
“You're mine,” he breathed into the kiss, the words gentler than before, “but I never want to hurt what belongs to me.” His hand slid down to cup your breast, thumb brushing your nipple with feather-light strokes as he continued the slow grind, letting you feel every inch of him without the earlier brutality.
The tenderness built its own heat, each careful movement drawing soft gasps from you as he kissed away the sting of his earlier roughness.
“Forgive me, my love.” He murmured into your ear, “I forget myself sometimes when it comes to you.”
You huffed a breathless laugh, “You need not apologise, husband. I quite enjoyed it.”
He placed a tender, fierce kiss against your forehead and smiled, “I feared you might say that.” and with a quiet chuckle, Ormund gathered you against his broad chest, his arms wrapping securely around you as though the whole world could wait.
He rested his cheek atop your head, content simply to hold you there, listening to your steady heartbeat until the silence between you became as warm and cherished as any whispered vow.
Ormund discovers his wife’s secret journal, revealing your hidden desires. Your restrained marriage ignites into a fierce, intense connection as he claims you fully, blending passion, power, and vulnerability in a charged, private moment.
𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒; dark!ormund, possessive behaviour, explicit sexual content, this is intense and fuck, very, very much explicit, so minors dni.
I wrote this whilst waiting in court, do not blame me, I was bored.
Ormund Hightower did not mean to find it.
The library was his sanctuary, not yours. You preferred the gardens, the solar, the bathhouse with its steam curling against the stone—anywhere the books were not. And yet there it was, tucked between a crumbling copy of The Seven-Pointed Star and a history of the Conquest he had not opened in years.
A small leather-bound journal, soft from handling, smelling faintly of jasmine and something warmer beneath.
Your scent. He knew it the way he knew prayer.
He pulled the journal free and the spine fell open in his palm, as though it had been waiting for him. The pages were filled in your looping, impatient hand, you had never taken to the septa's lessons on penmanship, and he meant only to close it, to set it back, to forget he had ever held it.
Then he read the first line his eyes found.
I dreamt again of his hands. Not the careful ones he offers me at table, not the ones that brush my cheek like I might break. The others. The ones he keeps locked away when he thinks I am not looking.
His breath stopped in his chest.
He read on. He could not have stopped if the library had caught fire around him.
Tonight at supper he did not look at me once. Not once. He spoke of tariffs and the harvest and whether the new maester would arrive before winter, and I sat across from him and wanted him to push the plates aside and take me across the table like a man takes what is his. I wanted the wine to spill. I wanted to feel the wood against my back and his weight pressing me into it until I could not breathe for wanting him.
The words blurred. He blinked, and the ink sharpened again, merciless.
I have been his wife for two years and he has never—not once—
“Fuck,” a single line remained below, and he did not finish reading it.
He closed the journal.
He set it on the table with a care that surprised him, given the way his hands were shaking, given the way the blood had gone from his face and returned somewhere lower and altogether more dangerous. He stood very still for a moment, the way a man stands before he does something he cannot undo and then he let out a breathless laugh, rubbing a hand across his face.
“You fucking little minx.”
Then he went to find you.
You were in the solar, as he had known you would be. The afternoon light came through the narrow windows and caught in your hair, and you were bent over some needlework you did not care about, your needle moving in that restless, impatient way that meant your mind was elsewhere. You did not hear him come in. You did not hear him cross the room.
You heard nothing until his hand closed in your hair, not gently, because that was not what you wanted, “You are a rather good pretender, my little sweetling.”
You gasped as the needlework fell, and your head was snapped back with a violent jerk, forcing your spine to arch and your throat to expose itself to the harsh afternoon light. A sharp cry of shock escaped your lips, but it was quickly stifled as he tightened his grip, winding the strands of your hair around his fist to ensure you couldn't pull away.
He leaned down, his breath hot and smelling of iron and leather against your ear. He didn't speak, as the silence of the room was now filled only by your ragged, panicked breathing and the soft thud of the embroidery hoop rolling across the stone floor.
With a sudden, cruel tug, he pulled you further back, forcing you to look up at him. Your eyes were wide, shimmering with a mixture of terror and a dark, forbidden thrill that you couldn't suppress. He stared down at you, his expression cold and possessive, his eyes scanning your trembling form. “Do you have any fucking idea what you have just done to me?”
Without warning, he shifted his weight, slamming you forward against the heavy wooden table. The impact knocked the wind out of you, and the scattered threads of your needlework clung to your skin like webs. He didn't let go of your hair, using it as a handle to keep your face pressed hard against the wood.
His other hand moved with predatory speed, gripping your hip and bruising the flesh as he hauled your backside up and back, pinning your chest to the table.
“Ormund!”
The rough fabric of your gown bunched up around your waist, leaving you vulnerable. He pressed his hard, demanding heat against the curve of your ass, letting you feel the rigid length of his cock through your clothes, marking you as his before a single garment had even been removed.
He bent lower, burying his face against the curve of your throat where the pulse hammered wild and frantic. He inhaled, deep, deliberate, the way a man drinks when he has been dying of thirst and the scent of you flooded him.
Jasmine and the faint salt of fear-sweat, because beneath it, the unmistakable honeyed musk of your arousal, already blooming between your thighs because of what he had done to you.
“Filthy,” he breathed against your throat. The word was almost a prayer. “You filthy little whore.”
You made a sound, half sob, half something else entirely and he felt your body shudder beneath his hands.
He pulled back just enough to look at you, and the grin that spread across his face was not the grin of the careful husband who brushed your cheek at table. It was something older, something that had been locked away in the same place as the hands you had written about. It was the grin of a man who had found what he was looking for and meant to take it without apology.
He had no intention of being gentle. “Go on, admit it. Tell me that this isn't what you wanted? Tell me that you have not imagined me bending you over a godsdamned desk like some fool desperate to get his cock wet?”
The hand in your hair twisted, wrenching your head to the side so that your cheek ground against the rough grain of the table. You whimpered, a real sound, not one of your careful sighs at supper and he felt something savage and satisfied curl through his chest at the sound of it.
“Two years,” he said, and his voice was low and rough, nothing like the voice he used in the great hall. “Two years you've been writing that you wanted this, and you never once had the courage to say it to my face.”
His free hand found the laces at the back of your gown and pulled, not carefully, not with the patience of a man who yearned for his wife's desperate mewla.
The laces did not give so much as surrender, threads snapping, fabric tearing, the sound obscene in the quiet solar, cool air hit the skin of your back and you arched against it, because at that moment, Ormund didn’t give you a moment to recover.
He reached down, his fingers hooking into the fine silk of your undergarments. With one violent, decisive rip, the fabric tore, the sound echoing like a war horn in the quiet solar. He didn't care for the cost of the lace, he only cared for the access it granted him.
He shoved you further onto the table, sweeping a vase of lilies and a stack of parchment to the floor with a crashing thud. He didn't let go of your hair, keeping your head pinned, your cheek pressed against the polished oak. He could feel you trembling, a fine, rhythmic shudder that told him you were terrified, but the way your hips instinctively tilted back toward him, seeking the friction of his cock, told him you were starving.
“You wanted this,” he snarled, his voice a low, guttural rasp. “You sat across from me and fantasized about me breaking you. You wrote it down like a little secret, thinking I would always be the gentle lord.”
He released your hair only to slam his hand down onto the small of your back, pinning you flat. His other hand reached between your legs, his fingers diving deep into your soaking heat. He didn't tease, not now, not when he ached to devour every inch of your skin as he drove two fingers inside you with a brutal thrust that forced a loud, sharp scream from your throat.
He felt the tight clench of your walls around him, the desperate, wet grip of a woman who had been dreaming of this violation for years.
“Look at you,” he hissed, his fingers curling and pumping inside you with a ruthless rhythm, stretching you open. “Dripping for me. You're nothing but a craving, aren't you? A little hole that needs to be filled by a man who doesn't care if he hurts you.”
He withdrew his fingers with a wet pop and moved with a sudden, predatory urgency. He fumbled with his breeches, freeing his cock, thick, pulsing, and engorged to the point of pain. He didn't use any lubricant other than the overflow of your own arousal.
He gripped your hips, his fingers digging into your skin, leaving marks that would turn purple by morning. He positioned the head of his cock at your entrance and, without a word of warning, drove himself home in one singular, devastating plunge.
You shrieked, your fingers clawing at the wood of the table, your back arching violently as he bottomed out inside you. The impact was jarring, a collision of flesh and bone that left you breathless. Ormund groaned, a sound of pure, possessive triumph, as he felt your tight heat wrap around him, squeezing him with a desperation that nearly broke his resolve.
He didn't give you time to adjust. He began to fuck you with a savage, unrelenting pace. Each thrust was a claim, a violent punctuation mark to the silence of your marriage.
He slammed his pelvis against your ass, the sound of your bodies colliding—slap, slap, slap—filling the room. He was no longer the husband, but rather now he was the master, and you were the vessel for every dark impulse he had suppressed for two years.
“Tell me,” he commanded, his voice shaking with lust, his teeth sinking into the soft meat of your shoulder, drawing blood. “Tell me you're my whore. Tell me you want me to ruin you.”
“Yes!” you sobbed, your voice broken and high, your head tossing from side to side. “Please... Ormund, please! Fuck me... break me... yes!”
The admission acted like fuel to a fire. He reached around, his hand finding your clitoris and grinding against it with a cruel, heavy pressure even as he continued to hammer into you from behind. The dual stimulation was too much as you began to peak, your internal muscles pulsing in violent spasms around his shaft.
Ormund felt his own climax rushing toward him, a tidal wave of heat and aggression. He gripped your hair again, pulling your head back so he could see the agony and ecstasy etched onto your face. He accelerated, his thrusts becoming short, sharp, and punishing, driving you further and further into the table.
“You're mine,” he growled, his voice thick. “Every inch of this filthy, wanting body is mine.”
With a final, guttural roar, he buried himself as deep as he could go and erupted. He felt the hot, thick jets of his cum flooding you, filling you to the brim, marking you internally just as he had marked your skin.
He stayed buried inside you for a long moment, his chest heaving, his weight crushing you into the wood, letting you feel the slow, rhythmic throb of his cock as it began to soften.
He didn't pull out immediately. He leaned down, kissing the back of your neck with a sudden, jarring tenderness that was almost more frightening than the violence.
“I read your journal, my sweetling,” he whispered, his voice returning to that smooth, noble tone, though the edge of cruelty remained. “And I think we shall spend the rest of the evening ensuring every single one of your dreams comes true. Whether you can stand for it or not.”
Ormund didn't let you linger in the afterglow. He withdrew from you with a wet, sliding sound, leaving your legs shaking and your pussy leaking his seed across the polished oak of the table.
Before you could even draw a full breath, he gripped your arm and hauled you to your feet. You stumbled, your ruined gown clinging to your thighs, your body humming with a mixture of exhaustion and desperate, lingering hunger.
The look in his eyes, cold, commanding, and utterly possessive told you that the game had only just begun.
He spun you around and marched you toward the nearest stone wall, his grip on your arm like a shackle. When they reached the cold masonry, he slammed you back against it. The impact jarred your teeth, and you let out a small, startled whimper, your palms flattening against the rough stone for balance.
Ormund stepped into your space, his massive frame blotting out the afternoon light. He didn't touch you with his hands this time, but he pressed his chest against yours, pinning you firmly to the wall, his hard, semi-erect cock rubbing against the damp silk of your dress.
“You’ve spent two years pretending to be the dutiful, delicate lady,” he murmured, his voice a low, dangerous vibration against your skin. “And you've spent those same years writing filth about your husband in a leather book. I think it's time we reminded you of exactly what you swore to me before the High Septon.”
He reached up, his hand wrapping around your throat, not to choke you, but to tilt your head back, forcing you to look into his eyes. His thumb pressed firmly against your windpipe, just enough to make you swallow hard.
“The vows,” he commanded. “Every single one. Recite them. Now.”
You trembled, your breath coming in shallow hitches. “Ormund... please...”
He tightened his grip on your throat, his eyes narrowing. “Do not 'please' me. Recite the vows, or I will find a much more painful way to make you remember them.”
Tears of arousal and fear pricked your eyes as you began, your voice shaking. “I... I take you to be my wedded husband...”
“Louder,” he snapped, his other hand sliding down to grip your thigh, hoisting it up and hooking it over his hip, forcing your legs open and exposing your dripping heat to the cool air of the solar.
“I take you to be my wedded husband!” you cried out, your voice cracking.
“And?”
“I... I promise to honor you... to cherish you... in sickness and in health...”
As you spoke the words of devotion, Ormund’s hand moved from your thigh to your center. He didn't use his fingers this time, he used the heel of his hand to grind hard against your clitoris, crushing the sensitive nub against the stone wall. You gasped, your words dissolving into a moan.
“Finish the vow,” he hissed, his teeth grazing the shell of your ear.
“In... in poverty and in wealth!” you sobbed, your hips bucking instinctively against his hand. “Until death do us part!”
“And the vow of obedience,” Ormund reminded you, his voice dropping to a guttural rasp. He released your throat only to grab both of your wrists, pinning them high above your head against the stone. He leaned in, his lips brushing yours, though he didn't kiss you. “The one where you swear your will is my will. Your body is my property. Your pleasure is my gift.”
“... I swear my will is yours,” you whispered, your eyes fluttering shut, your body sagging against him as you surrendered completely to his dominance. “My body... is your property.”
“Good girl,” he breathed.
He shifted his weight, his hand sliding back down to grip your ass, lifting you entirely off the floor. He pinned you against the wall with the sheer force of his body, his cock positioning itself perfectly at your entrance.
“Now,” he growled, “let's see if you can recite the prayers to the Father while I fuck the lies out of you.”
The cold stone bit into your back as he pressed you harder against the wall, the heat of his body searing through the thin fabric still clinging to your skin. You gasped, your legs wrapping instinctively around his hips as he lifted you higher, the head of his cock nudging against your slick folds. Your breath hitched at the pressure, at the promise of being filled, claimed, taken.
He didn't push inside, not yet. Instead, he held you there, suspended between the rough wall and his iron grip, his eyes boring into yours. The dark intensity in them made you feel small, worshipful.
“Pray,” he commanded. “The first one. You know it.”
Your mind was hazy, drowning in the scent of him, the weight of him, the ache between your legs that pulsed with every heartbeat. You swallowed, your throat dry.
“Oh Father, who watches from the sky...” you started, your voice trembling, barely a whisper.
“Louder,” he snapped, his hand coming down on your ass in a sharp crack that echoed off the stone. You cried out, your body jolting against him, the sting blooming across your flesh like fire.
“Oh Father, who watches from the sky,” you repeated, your voice stronger, steadier, even as tears pricked at the corners of your eyes. “Guide my hands, guard my heart...”
He thrust into you with one brutal, seamless motion, burying himself to the hilt. Your words dissolved into a moan, your head falling back against the stone as he stretched you, filled you, claimed the deepest parts of your body. He didn't move, just held himself there, letting you feel every inch of him pulsing inside you.
“And I will walk in Your light,” you gasped, forcing the prayer out through ragged breaths.
“Don't stop,” he growled, his hips beginning to move, slow, devastating with each stroke as his cock dragged against your walls, pulling pleasure and pain in equal measure. His grip on your wrists tightened, his fingers digging into your flesh like brands. “Pray.”
“And I will walk in Your light,” you repeated, your voice breaking as he picked up the pace, fucking you harder now, the sound of skin slapping against skin filling the space between your broken verses. “I will kneel... before Your throne... and offer... my devotion—oh, gods, please—”
He slammed into you, cutting off your plea. “Finish it.”
“Offer my devotion... until the stars... fall from the sky,” you sobbed, your body arching into his, your cunt clenching around him as he drove you toward the edge you could feel building, coiling, unbearable.
His forehead pressed against yours, his breath hot and ragged. “The second prayer. Now.”
“Father of storms, Father of steel,” you began, the words scraping out of your throat like glass. “Harden my spirit... make me... unbreakable...”
“Good girl,” he hissed, his rhythm faltering as his own release approached. “One more verse. One more.”
You clung to him, nails raking across his shoulders, your body trembling on the verge of shattering. “And when I fall... let me fall... upon Your mercy...”
He came with a guttural groan, his hips driving deep and holding, his cum flooding you in hot, thick pulses. You shattered, your climax tearing through you like a crack of lightning, your vision white, your scream swallowed by his mouth finally claiming yours in a bruising, possessive kiss.
When he broke the kiss, you were limp in his arms, your breath coming in shallow gasps. Your eyes were glassy, your body slick with sweat and his seed dripping down your thighs.
He pulled out slowly, watching you wince at the loss, and lowered your feet to the ground. You sagged immediately, your knees buckling, but his arm kept you upright, pinned against his chest.
“You will learn,” he said, his voice low and rough, his hand stroking your hair like you were a thing to be soothed. “Every prayer. Every verse. Every word of submission. And you will mean them all.”
You nodded, your lips parted, your mind empty of anything but the taste of him, the feeling of being owned so completely that nothing else in the world mattered.
He tilted his head towards the bed, “Now pray to the Mother for mercy, for I will have none. You little fucking vixen,” Ormund murmurs as he smooths down your hair, tilts your chip up and huffs, “such a good girl, my sweetling. You will never, ever, keep your thoughts from me again, do you fucking understand?”
You nodded, the movement small and unsteady.
“Yes,” you whispered.
Ormund searched your face for the slightest trace of defiance. Finding none, the hard line of his mouth eased, though his gaze remained unwavering. His hand lingered against your cheek for only a heartbeat before he let it fall.
“Good,” he said quietly. “I would sooner have your honesty than your obedience, sweetling. Remember that.”
Your throat tightened. Shame, relief, and something far more complicated tangled together until you could scarcely breathe. You lowered your eyes, unable to bear the weight of his stare.
“I understand.”
“You will not hide from me again?”
“No.”
The answer came without hesitation this time, and he gave a single curt nod, as though the matter had finally been settled. The silence that followed was heavy, but no longer sharpened into a blade.
It was the silence left after a storm had spent itself, leaving only two hearts to reckon with what had been said.
northernblots: Once there was a girl named Jenny.
She was like all the other girls, except for one thing.
She always wore a green ribbon around her neck.
