Summary: Joel's exhausted by the time he makes it to bed. But when a pretty little thing crawls in beside him, he finds the time for you, just like he always does.
Warnings: +18 MDNI, post outbreak, jackson!joel, unspecified age difference, joel pov, porn no plot, dry humping, slow and soft sex, smut with feelings, internalized shame, intimacy, unprotected piv, clit stimulation, kissing
Note: i haven't written for joel in monthsss but i hope you enjoy!!
WC: 2k
[masterlist] [AO3]
Joel’s the kind of exhausted that only comes with age.
Weary bones, heavy limbs, tired eyes.
He’s falling into bed as soon as he gets home, often forfeiting dinner in favor of blissful rest. Sometimes even before the sun’s fully set.
And today is just one of those days. He’d spent the night tossing and turning, trying to massage away a kink in his neck that persisted well into the afternoon. But he hadn’t had time to complain or think too much about how excited he was to crawl back beneath the sheets, because the northernmost barn was falling to pieces.
So, not only was he functioning half empty from the start, but the work today was also strenuous. Sawing raw timber to the perfect length, sanding down the sharp edges, hammering nails into plywood. A full day.
And when Denise had stopped him on his way home, waving him down with a glass of freshly squeezed lemonade in hand, she’d given him that bright, hopeful smile and said, “Little Sammy ran that damn bike into the back door again. Would you mind fixing the hinges?”
His back ached and his knees were creaky, but Joel soon found himself knelt on Denise’s porch, screwdriver and fresh nails in hand.
It didn’t take long, but it did take every last scrap of energy that remained inside of him.
Joel’s house was always quiet. Too big for him, really. Ellie was in the garage already, lights still on, up too late when she had early patrol the following morning. But Joel didn’t have it in him to remind her how important sleep was. Not when he was running on fumes himself.
So he dragged those tired, old bones inside. Kicked off his boots and jeans right at the door of his room, hung his flannel over the back of the chair at his work bench, and let out a long sigh as he climbed beneath icy cotton sheets.
He’s half asleep, eyes closed and muscles sinking into the mattress, when he hears it.
The click of the latch on the unlocked front door. The creak of your careful steps as you climb the stairs.
Joel feels you before he sees you. Too exhausted to pull himself out of blissful almost-sleep. The mattress dips beneath your weight, limbs outstretched, seeking him out of instinct.
This isn’t the first time this has happened. Not the first time you’ve found yourself peering out of your window next door waiting for him to get home. Not the first time you’ve ended up in his bed or in his arms.
And Joel knows he should put a stop to it—you’re too young, too sweet, too…good.
But he’s too worn out to fight his impulses. He’s tried for months to keep his thoughts pure when you cross his mind, but it’s been a losing battle from the start.
Especially when you’re like this. Warm and soft, pressed up against his side, wearing an old t-shirt he’d let you borrow the night before and not much else. A comfort that feels more like home than this house does.
The tips of your fingers tickle his forearm, rousing him just enough that he lifts the heavy limb so you can crawl right into his embrace.
Joel holds you tight. He always does. Biceps big and strong around your shoulders. He holds you like he might lose you tomorrow, because there’s a part of him that fears one day you’ll wake up and see something you don’t like.
He worries you’ll begin to see him for what he is; old, weary, tired. Not even half the man he used to be. Not half the man you deserve.
But for tonight at least, you still wear those rose tinted glasses. Pressing sweet kisses to his face; his nose, his forehead, his cheeks. Nuzzling your face into the crook of his neck, making cute, whiny noises at the back of your throat. Like you’re desperate, unable to get close enough despite every inch being pressed against him, leg hooked over his hips.
You find a comfortable position and still beside him, letting out the same sort of long sigh Joel did just moments ago. But you don’t sleep—your breathing doesn’t even out, your muscles don’t go slack.
Joel knows what you need. Long before your hips tilt, before you press your center against his thigh, before you whisper his name in the dark.
“S’okay, sweetheart,” he murmurs, voice deep and dark and sleepy. “C’mere.”
He reaches over and brackets his arm around your waist to drag you on top of him, your center already warm and wanting.
It’s starting to get out of hand, he knows. Starting to become a routine. But Joel doesn’t have many sweet thing in his life, not anymore, and he finds you near impossible to resist. “I’ve got you,” he says. “Take what ya need.”
You lay against his chest, ear pressed right over his heart. Joel kisses the crown of your head when your hips begin to tilt, rubbing yourself against the steadily growing bulge beneath the thin fabric of his boxers.
Soft, wanton sighs leave you at the sensation, and even with a barrier still between you he can feel your clit pulse against the underside of his cock.
Needy little thing you are. But Joel doesn’t mind—he likes the feeling. Of being needed, wanted. Especially by a girl as sweet as you.
You grind on top of him for a while. Not seeking release, not yet. Just feeling the hard warmth of him beneath you, savoring the weight of his big hands stroking softly up and down the expanse of your back.
He can feel your arousal growing with each pass, wetness slowly seeping through his boxers, slick and sticky. Joel nudges you gently with the tip of his nose, the prickly hairs of his mustache tickling the side of your face. “C’mon, sweet girl. Let’s get this shirt off, hm?”
When you nod, you pull yourself up tiredly. The movement is slow and thick like molasses, so Joel uses the last of his energy to help you.
His hands find the hem of the oversized t-shirt and pull it upwards, over your head to be discarded on the floor beside his bed. It leaves you completely naked, bared for him in more ways than one.
In an instant, you fall back against him, breasts pressed up against his chest. Your skin feels cool against his, smooth and pillowy. “S’warm,” you mutter, rubbing the side of your cheek against the coarse hair that litters his chest, graying in some places.
Joel’s cock throbs beneath you, but he doesn’t pay it any mind. He just lets you settle back down and allows you to rest. His hands wander, though, the way they always do.
Sliding down your back, over the sides of your thighs, thumbs massaging gentle circles. He strokes his fingers gently back up to your shoulders and then brings them down your arms, smiling when he sees goosebumps rise in his wake.
When they settle back at your hips, his touch is a little more eager. Kneading at the softness, inching over the curve of your ass until that’s all his hands are filled with.
Joel loves touching you. Not just suggestively, but intimately. He loves feeling the closeness and the trust you put in him to take care of you, to keep you safe, to make you feel good.
He massages the supple flesh, holding you close, until his need for you begins to grow teeth, gnawing at his psyche.
Joel knows he shouldn’t. He knows that.
But he’s just so tired, and you’re so soft. Gentle and kind. And you make him feel loved—something Joel Miller has not felt for a very, very long time.
He guides you with his hands gripping at your curves, sliding your slick cunt over his aching cock. His breath feels hollow, stuck in his lungs.
When he lifts upward, just a little, enough to provide a little extra pressure, you mewl in response.
Joel is quick to soothe, shushing softly into your ear. “Shh, you’re alright. Hang on, sweet girl. M’right here.”
He knows what you need. It’s become a nightly ritual at this point. You come to him seeking connection, seeking the comfort of an older man. Most nights you just need to be held, to be nurtured, to be loved the way you deserve.
But other nights, Joel knows you need a little more. A connection that runs a little deeper.
He reaches beneath you, hooking his thumbs in the elastic band of his boxers and tugging them down his tired legs. Just enough to free his cock, already hard as stone just from your proximity.
Joel pulls your forward, up his torso, giving himself room to line his length up with your entrance.
He slides in real easy.
You’re already soaked, dripping with arousal. And the moment he’s fully seated inside you, stretching you real wide, filling up your belly, you let out a breathy whine.
It feels right, being here like this with you. It feels like coming home.
Joel moves you slowly, guiding each roll of your hips, slowing you down when you try to pick up the pace.
There’s no rush. Not here, not with him. He’ll get you there. He’ll get you what you need. What’s the sense in hurrying through it?
He wants to savor it. The feel of your sweet, soft pussy, clenching and leaking around his length. The way your stuttering breath tickles his skin. The way your hands grip him harder and harder, holding him impossibly closer.
He wants to savor the way you love him.
“Gimme a kiss, baby,” he whispers in the dark.
You turn your head, just enough so that he can press his lips to yours. In this, too, Joel moves painfully slow.
It’s not a claiming, it’s an exploration. His lips move against yours, memorizing the feel of them, the shape and the taste. He slowly licks into your mouth, tongue gliding against yours, breathing in your exhalation.
The building coil around his spine is anything but slow, however. He loves being here with you maybe a little too much. He loves you a little too much.
Joel thrust upwards, keeping a steady, unforgiving rhythm while he slides his hand between you. His fingers search blindly for your clit and he finds it in seconds, circling those slow, tight circles around the pulsing nerves.
Your sounds grow louder, release building. The sound of your joining echoes in the empty room, slick and wet and feverish.
He knows your close when you start manually breathing—lungs stuttering, chasing the delicious relief that only he can provide.
“You got it,” he encourages. “S’right there, baby. Give it to me.”
Your eyes stay locked to his, lips parting on a jagged moan. You don’t say anything; no warning, no begging. You just feel it, feel him, moving deep inside you, fucking you through it.
“That’s it,” he says, voice all soft and warm the way it only ever is when he speaks to you. “There you go.”
He doesn’t stop until you find the natural rhythm of oxygen again, until the shaking in your thighs relents to an easy tremble.
Joel feels that white-hot coil beginning to spool within himself, and pulls out of you with just enough time to shoot thick ropes of cum over your pubic bone.
He thrusts the underside of his cock through your syrupy folds, a gentle rocking until he’s spent. He somehow finds the energy for a few extra thrusts, smearing his release over your clit.
You don’t move an inch, and Joel doesn’t want you to.
Instead, you just lay there on top of him, sticky mess between you, your head resting delicately on his chest.
When you reach up to card your fingers through his graying hair, Joel feels his muscles go completely slack, tension bleeding from his weary bones.
“M’sorry I woke you up,” you say, pressing a kiss to the corner of his mouth. “I know you were tired.”
“Don’t be sorry,” Joel says, and he means it. “I’ll always have time for you."
description: jacaerys was ecstatic when his mother proposed that he invite his girlfriend along on their annual summer holiday in dorne. two weeks in paradise, endless luxury, the love of his life, and…his entire extended family–what could go wrong?
Warnings: swearing, mentions of sex (no smut in this chap), reader is mentioned to be feminine presenting but no physical features mentioned beyond clothing, a disgustingly large wealth gap (middle class!reader), very toxic family dynamics, no targcest featured in this one (jace, luke, and joffrey are still velaryons but lets not dwell on that)
words: 2.3K
date posted: 19/07/26
next part
The call came late on a Saturday afternoon.
Jacaerys had prided himself on his ability to hole his girlfriend up in his penthouse for days on end; he had the resources to feed, clothe, and entertain her for weeks if he had to, and was never denying himself the opportunity to spend an entire weekend cut off entirely from the outside world, just himself and the love of his life for two and a half consecutive days straight.
He spent his weeks buried deep in his work, but his focus was always somewhat clouded with the vision of his beloved taking up space, just existing in his environment with such ease. He’d yet to ask her to officially move in, but he could feel it coming in the near future, considering that he could hardly sleep a wink on the rare occasion she actually spends the night at her own shoebox apartment all the way across the city. He treated her to breakfast in bed, lazy morning sex followed by long showers where he clings to her the entire time. He took her on any afternoon outing she desired, chauffeuring her around the city for any appointments or activities she may have had on Saturday. Sundays, however, were reserved for a quiet reset. Laundry, grocery shopping, and meal prepping taken care of in the morning so the rest of the day can be spent in their most comfortable clothes with fruity smelling face masks pressed to their skin as they lounge on the couch watching The Real Housewives of Casterly Rock. Nowhere was his favourite place to be with her, where they had no distractions, no obligations other than to be together.
It was just after supper, they were unwinding with a glass of chilled arbor red, on opposite sides of the couch lazily scrolling through their respective social media. Her legs stretched across the cushions, finding their place in his lap while his spare hand cupped the slope of muscle between her half and ankle, his fingers tracing soft patterns against the dragon tattoo just behind her ankle bone.
The loud ringing that interrupted their peaceful silence caused both of them to jump, his phone falling to his lap and revealing his mother’s contact lit up on the screen. He let out a soft snort, his fingers curling around her ankle and offering a comforting squeeze as he reached for the device.
She could barely see the screen from where she laid, craning her neck as Jace accepted the call and his mother’s face appeared on the screen. Her surroundings were dimly lit, most likely her own living room at the Dragonstone Estate just a few hours outside of the city. Her hair was neatly braided back, as usual, and her face still radiated that ethereal beauty that only those of Valyrian descent possessed, though there was a certain tiredness beneath her soft expression.
“Hi mum,” he greeted, “everything alright?”
Rhaenyra’s expression softened through the screen, her response coming with a playful bite, “does something need to be wrong in order to speak to your mother?”
Jace rolled his eyes, “no, of course not. But, I can see that you’re still at the office, so I can only assume.”
“I’m alright, my boy,” she sighed, “things are busy here. Your grandsire is increasingly difficult to work with now that I’ve relocated to Dragonstone. That man knows less and less about computers each time he uses one.”
Jacaerys let out a soft laugh at that. He’d spent the last few summers interning under his grandfather in King’s Landing, and had spent countless lunch breaks ranting to his girlfriend over the phone with the very same complaints. He squeezed her ankle playfully in a silent I-told-you-so, drawing a low giggle from her.
Rhaenyra visibly perked up at the sound–how she had picked up on the quiet noise through the microphone was beyond both of them, but she’d grown incredibly fond of her son’s girlfriend and always bugged him about never seeing her enough.
“Hello my girl,” she said, “Jace, show her to me.”
Jace let out a scoff at his mother’s command, “did you call me because you missed your first born or because you wanted to speak to my girlfriend?”
“I called in hopes of seeing you both,” she said, rather diplomatically, “but especially the future mother of my firstborn’s firstborn. And the others to follow.”
A scarlet flush came to stain Jacaerys’s pale cheeks like a ruthless wave of heat. This drew a sharper laugh from his girlfriend, who had sat up and reached out to snatch the phone from his hand.
“There she is,” Rhaenyra hummed, “lovely as ever. How are you, my love?”
“Hello Miss Targaryen,” the younger woman beamed into the camera, “I’m far better than your son at the moment, it seems.”
Rhaenyra chuckled at that, “my son is utterly devoted to you in every way, and still he cannot handle even the slightest teasing.”
“I am still here,” Jace barked, shifting to lay across his girlfriend’s abdomen so they were both in frame, “I would ask you not to speak about me right to my face, but you two spend more time together than either of you do with me.”
“Oh please,” his girlfriend dismissed him, “we live in different cities, that is not possible.”
“And yet somehow, you manage.”
“That reminds me,” Rhaenyra cut in, “that is exactly why I called. My father has proposed a group trip.”
Jace’s body stiffened as his face lifted off of his girlfriend’s chest, “which group?”
Rhaenyra’s expression twisted, her eyes speaking for her as she pursed her lips, unenthused.
“The family. The whole family.”
“Such as…”
“Myself, you, Luke, and Joff, of course; my father, Alicent, Aegon, Helaena, and Aemond. Daeron has decided to find an internship in Old Town for the spring break, and the offer has been extended to Daemon and Laena, though it doesn’t seem likely that he’ll accept. My father and Daemon have done nothing but bicker for the last few weeks.”
Then, in a honeyed tone, she added the younger woman’s name to the list, “of courseyou are invited to join us as well. I’ve already included you in the numbers for planning, but there is no pressure. We’re thankful enough that you are able to handle Jacaerys, let alone my entire family.”
“Oh–”
Both Rhaenyra and Jace’s expressions shifted at the uncertainty on the girl’s face.
“What is it?” He asked, sitting up straighter as concern flashed through him.
There were a few factors that struck fear into her, starting with the fact that she had never even met the rest of his family beyond his mother and brothers, who seemed so homey and welcoming that she almost forgot that Jace’s grandfather was the king.
The king had extended an invitation for her to join their family vacation–well, he had extended it to his daughter, who extended it to her son, and in extension, to you, but the importance of the details seem to be lost on her. A week spent with the royal family, along with her boyfriend, who is part of the royal family. She suddenly felt that gnawing feeling of inadequacy that she often felt when she was suddenly reminded of how out of her league Jace was.
Then, there was also the issue of her internship. While Jace had secured his own working closely along with his grandfather and his closest advisors, she’d had a harder time finding her own for the summer break, but she had struck gold when she received an offer from a very highly praised law firm to work as their office assistant. It came with many benefits, including a paid vacation time that had not yet been fixed to a date, it seemed like a better excuse than blatantly admitting to her cowardice.
“It’s just…” she felt her cheeks burning as she worked her way to the admission, “I just…I don’t think I could afford it, especially considering I’d be taking a week off for the holiday itself. Perhaps for the winter holidays, or–”
Rhaneyra let out a soft bark of a laugh as she interrupted the younger woman, “I’m very disappointed in my son that it was even a thought in your mind that you would be paying for any of it, my love. It is an invitation, all expenses covered. I want you there, so do Luke and Joff, and even Jacaerys’s grandsire has expressed his interest in meeting you. Besides, I cannot imagine the agony we would all suffer on behalf of Jace being apart from you for more than a few hours.”
“Mum,” Jace said sharply, but his arm only tightened around his girlfriend’s shoulders to confirm his mother’s implication.
“I only jest, my boy,” Rhaenyra laughed, “the decision is yours, darling, but I do hope you consider it.”
The girl glanced up at her boyfriend’s hopeful expression, letting out a sigh, “I’ll think on it. I’ll need to see if I can take the time away from work, and the museum, and–”
“Yes, yes, all of your other engagements,” Rhaenyra pursed her lips, “Jace has told me about how busy you keep yourself during your summer break. Yet another reason you should join us, in my opinion.”
Jacaerys felt his partner’s figure stiffen under his arm at the dismissal. She’d expressed her uncertainty in the past regarding the major wealth and status difference between the two, especially when it came to Jace’s instinct to pay for everything or almost bribe her from her own engagements.
It began with small requests for her to skip class to be with him, which was not often enough to put a stink up over, but enough for her to take note of how he had much less remorse for cutting himself some slack than she typically afforded herself. Then it was him begging her to attend all of his football matches and practices, even when she had other commitments or needed to study; this she could understand his desire for her to be there supporting him, but on the occasion that she was unable to attend, she was often left feeling a touch guilty when she prioritized her future over her relationship.
The issue developed into the first real fight of their relationship, climaxing with a day of no contact, then a week of Jacaerys following her around like a lost puppy seeking her affection. Since then, he’d been more conscious of not making money seem worthless, but still went the extra mile to spoil her as much as she would allow.
Her hand reached down to squeeze his thigh, offering him a small nod of assurance. Sure, it wasn’t always nice to have the limitless wealth of the Targaryens waved in her face so blatantly, but she knew Rhaenyra meant no harm by it.
“We’ll let you know, mum,” Jace cut in, “my girl has herself working harder than anyone I know this summer, let her sleep on it.”
Rhaenyra’s expression shifted, seemingly more alert of how she may have been received, “forgive me, my girl, I didn’t mean to say that your other engagements were lesser or–”
“It’s alright,” she said, “I had to work very hard to earn my internship this summer, so I’ll need to see if I’m able to take the time before I agree.”
“I understand,” Rhaenyra agreed, seemingly a touch embarrassed over the discomfort she’d unintentionally caused, “well, just know that we would all adore it if you could make it, but we will not feel slighted at all. I will speak to you both tomorrow.”
“Love you, mum,” Jace said as he hung up, tossing his phone aside onto the coffee table and shifting his body to lay completely over her body with a groan.
She let out a laugh, hands catching at his ribs as he buried his head into her shoulder.
“Sorry about her,” he mumbled against her bare shoulder, the large sweatshirt of his that she wore shifting away as he laid her back against the cushions, “she can be a bit demanding, I know.”
“I’m not offended,” she responded, fingers carding through his thick curls affectionately, “she means well. Your mother and I both experience struggles that the other could not understand from our upbringings.”
He let out a small huff against her neck, “hm, and you I was spoiled.”
“You,” she tugged at his curls to lift his gaze to meet her own, “are spoiled. But I can be angry with you, but I do not think I could stay cross with your mother for very long. She is a very persuasive woman.”
“You’re the one who spoils me,” he argued, his voice shifting into a playfully mocking tone, “you’ve made me conditioned to need you at all times, woman. Forgive me for being just too besotted by you.”
She giggled at him, her leg lifting to press her heel into his backside in retaliation, “oh shut up. I’m starting to think you don’t want me to come on this holiday afterall.”
He raised a brow, “you think I am actively trying to give up seeing you in sundresses and bathing suits for a week straight?”
“Oh, is that why you want me to come?”
“Mostly,” he grinned at her, “but just think of it, unlimited wine, sunshine, sex on the beach…”
“Need I remind you that your entire family will be there as well?”
He let out a sigh, “fine, fine. Next time we go on holiday though…”
Tags ✦ arranged marriage, wedding night, voyeurism, angst, dub con, power imbalance, loss of virginity (both reader and Jace), oral sex (female receiving), p. in v. sex, threesome (sort of), dark Aemond, overall Jace is going through it
Wordcount ✦ 6k (sorry not sorry)
Wed to your uncle Aemond for political appeasement, you did not expect him to request that your twin, Jacaerys, stand witness to the consummation. It would be a simple formality, if only your twin was not desperately in love with you.
Aemond Masterlist ✦ Jacaerys Masterlist
The bells of the Great Sept were tolling, loud in the sky of King’s Landing. A royal wedding was to be celebrated, and such an event never ceased to delight the people of the city. Many had dressed in their finest clothes and taken to the streets in the hope of seeing the bride or the groom.
Dressed in the Targaryen colors, in a gown more intricate and grand than you had ever worn, you were making your way through the city, the litter carried by several horses, bouncing on the cobblestones as it took you to the place where you would be married.
Seated across from you, your twin brother Jacaerys was looking more anxious than you felt, and you almost considered fleeing from this ceremony, for his sake more than your own. Clearing your throat, you reached out to him, curling your hand over his.
“Marriage is the way people make alliances and solidify them, and have been for centuries,” you repeated what your mother had told you. “Perhaps it won’t be the tragedy you seem to anticipate.”
“Aemond certainly thinks it will be his triumph,” Jacaerys snorted in disdain. His face was obscured by a long curtain of dark curls, but you allowed him the semblance of privacy as he mourned what was to come.
“This is an opportunity, Jace,” you tried to convince him as you had done many times since the announcement of your betrothal, not meaning to be reassuring rather than placating. “One of a kind.”
“Surely there was some other way,” he lamented, quieter than he usually protested about anything, and you removed your hand.
While you had wept when first announced that the king would see you married with your uncle Aemond, fearing for your future and your happiness, you had long prayed about it and had written to him from Dragonstone. If such was meant to be your fate, then you would surrender to it, if it brought an end to the tensions between the two factions of your grandsire’s family.
Walking down the aisle to the altar weeping would not serve you, and you far preferred using your energy for making the best of a situation you had not chosen.
“Are you so pained, seeing me at his arm?” you asked Jacaerys as the litter rocked and swayed when it took a curve, slowly ascending the slight hill where the Sept was built.
“I should not say,” your twin brother answered, heartbroken and petulant.
“Jacaerys…” you tried again, reaching for him once more.
“You are my sister, my twin… Half of my soul,” he finally relented with a great sigh, returning your gesture of affection and intertwining his fingers with yours.
“You will always be half of me, nothing can change that,” you said with a small smile, and at that he brought your joined hands to his face to press a kiss to the back of your knuckles. You wondered whether such a tender and chivalrous gesture would be part of your marriage, or if your uncle was incapable of bestowing them.
“I have a request,” Jacaerys whispered, eyes downcast. “May I kiss you one last time?”
It took every ounce of your resolve for you not to weep when his lips fell to yours, firm and chaste, a simple press of the mouth that carried all the sorrow and grief that inhabited both you and your twin brother. You held onto your certainties and prayed that the Gods would eventually release you of your sadness.
While you would always cherish the special bond you shared with Jacaerys, and would likely always love him more completely than you could ever love someone else, you were promised to another.
Gods willing, it would be a sacrifice for a greater prize—that of peace and reconciliation.
Such feelings filled your heart as you stepped from the litter a minute later, and you clutched them within your ribcage. Above the Sept, the sky loomed, dull and gray, like an omen.
Seeing you approach the altar at your brother’s arm, Aemond had felt the closest thing to exaltation as he had in a long time. He had delighted in the delicate trembling of your frame, the wavering of your voice as you had pledged yourself to him and now, ceremony completed, he felt utterly victorious.
You were beautiful, only a fool would deny it, but the greatest thrill he felt resided in the very obvious fact that you belonged to Jacaerys. It would be the closest thing to a revenge he would get on the bastards, but it would have to do.
He would get to purify your blood and give you white-haired children, he thought, and Jacaerys would have to live with the fact that you were bound to him, irrevocably, and in flesh. The young man’s eyes were fixed on him from the other end of the royal table at the banquet all throughout the feast
At his side, you had hardly touched any of your food and were sipping wine more regularly than seemed to be your habit, but it visibly did little to calm your obvious nerves. Aemond found he was eager for the evening to end and for the two of you to retreat to his chambers. A thrum was going under his skin knowing that if all went according to his plan, he would defile you under your brother's watchful eye.
As cheese and fruit was served, along with a darker wine, Aemond rose carefully, goblet in hand.
“A toast, to my dear nephews, and to my niece,” he started, then corrected himself with obvious delight. “Or should I say to my wife, now.”
At his other side, the King hummed, pleased, while further down the table, Jacaerys hid his annoyance with a cough. “May our union be fruitful and bring honor to our family,” he said with a bit of flair he heard his mother sigh at.
Looking up at him with confusion and apprehension, you looked like a lamb to the slaughter, but held onto your composure admirably. You forced a small smile onto your face. “May the Gods hear you, husband,” you added.
“A witness to the consummation, I believe is custom on the bride’s part,” Aemond continued without waiting for the tension to abate, and he could almost hear his mother’s reproach, although she remained silent, glaring at him worryingly.
Rhaenyra did not miss a beat and answered promptly. “I shall be present, then.”
Aemond hummed a biting laugh. “No, sister, I would not ask this of you. I think your son can deputize for this particular duty,” he said with a tone that left no doubt as to his determination. “They are twins, surely secrecy and modesty are not in their habits, are they?”
Before Rhaenyra could protest, Jacaerys spoke up, rising from his own seat. “It is alright, mother. I will stand as witness,” he assured, his tone perfectly calm while anger was clearly painted on his face.
Such an expression remained as Aemond led you away from the banquet and down the hallway to his rooms. You took his arm with a trembling hand but allowed yourself to be led, which he appreciated. So far you had seemed much timid and meek, but he knew it was a front you put up, and he wished to see what was underneath. Perhaps that side of you was reserved for your family.
Aemond was sure he could get you to fold and surrender, and he would put his every effort into it. Mayhaps the presence of your brother would help break you in, and the mere idea put a shiver to his spine.
His rooms were sparsely furnished and less luxurious than that of his siblings, but it was a space he felt at ease in. Large bookshelves covered the main wall, and a mural painting of the burning of Harrenhal sat above the head of his bed—he saw it caught your eye as soon as you entered.
“You may sit there, nephew,” Aemond instructed, gesturing to an armchair that had been placed at the side of the bed, where Jacaerys would get an unobstructed view of what was to occur. “Disrobe,” he told you just as promptly.
“Entirely?” you asked, a bit incredulous.
“Yes,” Aemond replied as though it was natural. “No need to be shy, I’m sure it’s nothing your brother has not seen.”
Standing in the middle of the room, you looked slightly out of place in your embroidered wedding gown and intricate hairdo. Aemond wanted to see it all undone, he wanted you bare and vulnerable, where he could reach under your skin.
He did not wait for you to voice your compliance, instead turned to his own clothes as Jacaerys sat where he had been instructed to—he was strangely silent, and Aemond wondered when the first acerbic comment or critic would come.
He did not let his nephew’s presence shake him, instead took pride in undressing himself slowly, revealing the body he had worked on so tirelessly since the first flutterings of manhood. He had honed each and every muscle in the yard, and he knew his height was to his advantage. What he lacked in facial beauty, he made up for in other ways, or at least he tried to.
“I shall need help to unlace my gown,” you spoke up, and from the corner of his eye Aemond saw that you had undone your hair and let it fall around your shoulders. Your feet were bare on the stones, shoes and socks discarded.
“Your brother may help,” Aemond replied casually once more, and the creaking of the chair outside of his line of vision, followed by footsteps, signaled to him his nephew’s compliance.
The young man was strangely obedient, and it intrigued him as much as it unsettled him. Perhaps it was on your instructions, as you seemed intent on putting up a good front.
“Thank you,” you whispered to Jace as he came up behind you and pulled the laces of your dress with expert fingers. You could hear his ragged breaths that he tried to keep quiet, and threw him a gentle look over your shoulder. “I shall be fine, now.”
Your twin nodded, letting the fabric fall at your waist and stepping back, your double meaning not lost on him. You quickly dropped the heavy dress to the floor and stepped out of it, and when you looked back up, the sight of the scene in front of you cut your breath.
Aemond was walking towards a nearby table, bare as the day he was born, his pride obvious in the way he rolled his shoulders. At the side of the bed, Jacaerys was sitting in an armchair, resolutely staring at the wall.
You could not deny your uncle painted quite the picture—his long, white hair unraveled at his shoulders, a silky curtain that grazed the divot at the small of his back. He was lithe, silky skin stretched over what looked to be lean muscle, more visibly carved than Jacaerys. He was handsome, even with the scar, and his missing eye, but you doubted that he would be very tender.
You quickly dropped the last layer of your clothes before you could think better of it, folding your shift and settling it over the back of a chair, knowing you might want to find it quickly once the deed was done.
You averted your eyes as Aemond turned to face you, a cup full of wine in hand. “Come here, I would see you before we start,” he said, sounding almost pleasant.
Carefully stepping into the light of the torch, you crossed your wrists low on your belly. Heat rose to your cheeks when Aemond took an appreciative glance while sipping his wine.
“No need to be shy, little dragon,” he crooned, and you would have thought him mocking if he did not sound so firm. “Show me.”
Aemond cleared his throat slightly as you uncrossed your wrists and bared the apex of your thighs to his gaze, instead crossing your arms at your chest. So preoccupied with your own nervousness, he was sure you did not see how his own hands trembled.
You were not a girl paid to pretend you enjoyed his company, but a niece who would likely not hesitate to tell him his shortcomings, and such a prospect was both incensing and terrifying. It was a chance to prove himself, but it could just as well be his undoing. It was a shame you were not Lucerys’ twin, he swiftly thought—but surely it was better for you, or he might have been more cruel.
“Drink,” he murmured, handing you the goblet he had been sipping from. “It won’t do if you are too tense,” he explained, throwing a glance over his shoulder when Jacaerys took a deeper breath at his words.
You followed his suggestion, uncrossing your arms to take the cup in hand, and he allowed himself the first touch of the night. Your hand shook and the cup wobbled when his thumb followed the underside of your breast, then pressed into its lovely curve until it bounced when he released it.
He relished in how you obviously reacted positively to his touch, your skin rising in shivers all across your chest and arms, your cheeks flushing.
Running his fingers along the soft line of your waist produced the same effect, in addition to a sharp intake of breath when he reached your hip, the pad of his thumb teasing the crease leading to the apex of your thighs. You shifted your weight under his quiet inspection, and he could see you wished to speak, to diffuse whatever tension he was imposing on you.
“Gevie,” he murmured before you could find your words, and the shudder that rocked your frame told him you had understood him perfectly.
He was not one for praise but it seemed you were. Although it was certain there was no love between you, and perhaps never would be, he wondered if there could still be more than marital obligation. This tentative desire between the two of you certainly exhilarated him.
Delighted and more excited than he had anticipated, he curled forward, dipping his head into your neck to smell your sweet perfume and pressing a kiss to your soft skin, teasing and trying to coax more reaction from you. “Lay down,” he whispered into your skin, taking the cup from you and setting it aside.
Jacaerys held his breath as you approached the bed, and he forced himself not to react. This moment was the first step into your marriage, and he had vowed to himself that he would help you take it. If you were committed to this, then he would support, but one word from you, or a sign that you wished to flee, and he would take you.
The both of you knew this, and it was this trust that seemed to settle your nerves as you laid across the sheets, your eyes fixed on him.
He tried to slow his breaths, so that you could follow him, but he could not loosen the tense line of his shoulders, no matter how much he willed himself to relax.
Aemond climbed after you, agile in the way a predator was, and settled easily between your parted knees. His long hair fell over his shoulders, hiding his face as he tucked himself into the cradle of your hips, and the sight alone was enough to bring Jacaerys to tears.
You took a long breath, your eyes never leaving your twin as you felt a hard line of heat press against your most intimate place. You curled your hands around your uncle’s—now husband’s—shoulders, blunt nails digging into his pale skin. Suddenly your head swam and something in the pit of your stomach screamed at you to flee, but it was too late.
Jacaerys nodded encouragingly, though a silent tear was rolling down his cheek, and you swallowed the rising plea in your throat, the sight of his distress somehow making you braver.
The pressure grew as Aemond pressed the tip of his length against your entrance, gently, then firmer, as if he was trying to get you used to his presence there. “Breathe, little dragon,” he murmured, in the same almost-crooning voice he had used earlier, and it settled you somehow.
Then, with a quick, firm snap of his hips, Aemond pushed inside—you cried out, the sharp pinch of his intrusion causing you to clench, pain irradiating your lower half. Jacaerys’ hands curled on the armrest of his chair and he breathed in sharply, startled.
“Hush, little dragon,” Aemond soothed as you whimpered, himself sounding half inebriated. “It is done.”
Eyes closed against the pain, you could not tell if your sobs were those of sorrow or relief. As he had said, it was done, you had been irrevocably breached. Now, you expected him to mindlessly take you, but to your confusion, he did not.
“Aemond?” you asked when he pulled out, making you hiss.
The stretch of him inside you still burned after he was gone, and you feared it would make the rest of the evening much more painful than you had anticipated. Rising to his knees between your parted thighs, he threw his hair over his shoulders and looked down at you appreciatively before unhooking your knees from his slim hips.
Instead he planted your feet on the bedding and bent down, sliding down slightly until he could comfortably press a kiss between your breasts.
“Let a husband enjoy his reward,” he instructed, and you sunk back into the sheets and pillows, and surrendered to what he had in mind.
Jacaerys realized what was to occur, and he did not know if he ought to be relieved or furious. It seemed Aemond did not intend to take you mindlessly, and to either ignore or savor your pain. Instead he would linger and savor your pleasure, and Jace would have no escape from it.
He felt his lower lip wobble, furious tears rising behind his eyes, but he held on to his courage as best he could. You threw him a confused look, and he forced himself to give you an encouraging nod and a small smile. You flushed, keeping your eyes on him as Aemond pressed a row of kisses down your abdomen.
Jacaerys saw on your face the moment Aemond kissed your core, when your mouth fell open and your brows creased. Aemond curled his hands around the back of your thighs, holding you in a place with a bruising grip, humming against you. One of your hands tentatively reached for the top of his head, and he allowed you to tangle your fingers in his long locks.
He tried a broad lick, the flat of his tongue sliding along your crease, but it wasn’t until he prodded the small bud at the top of your folds with the point of his tongue that you truly surrendered. Pleasure came to you in sharp waves, the precise licks and presses at your core, simple but effective, almost ruthless in their persistence.
Little by little your knees lowered, your feet losing their balance on the sheets, and eventually your legs fell fully open.
The sight was breathtaking, Jacaerys had to admit. The usually cold and collected man was allowing you to rock up against his face, your fingers tight in his silver strands. Jacaerys wanted to smirk at how the balance was reversed now, even if only for a moment.
He could also no longer deny the sight aroused him—despite his hatred for Aemond, the play of pleasure over your face was delightful, and each of your sighs were making him twitch in his trousers. The edge was within your reach, he could tell, and his own cock throbbed when you whined in frustration. Aemond had pushed himself back and over your body once more.
“Wait,” you cried out, pushing a hand flat against his chest. Aemond ignored you, a frown coming over his face and he pushed back, but you did not relent. “I would—” you tried. “Valzȳrys, kostilus.”
Husband, please. That seemed to calm whatever protest had risen in Aemond, and although his frown did not relent, he let you guide him by the shoulders until he was sitting back on the sheets, and you were straddling his lap clumsily.
You threw a bewildered glance at your twin, and he could not tell what your intentions were, to submit Aemond or to make matters easier for yourself. Or mayhaps you had noticed his interest and wished for him to have an unobstructed view of what was to occur. Aemond did not let himself be subdued so easily, and it was obvious who had the upper hand when he pressed up inside you once more.
The stretch still burned, but underneath it the thrumms of your refused peak roared back to life, a new kind of pleasure rising in you. His eye was dark and intense, his hands a guide at your hips.
“Sȳz,” he praised, his lips stretching into a grin.
He willed himself to be patient, gauging what rhythm made you clench around him, made you grind back down against his thrusts, chasing your pleasure. For a little while the room was nearly silent, and the only thing Aemond could hear was your panting and Jace’s shaky breaths. He snapped his hips up harder; the vice of your cunt around his cock was making him wild and reckless, and he knew it wouldn’t be long now.
“Don’t silence yourself, little dragon, let him hear,” he suggested, grinning as you complied, a ragged sob tearing through you at the next thrust, pleasure building slowly, unfamiliar and coming from deep within.
In the next moment Jacaerys found himself rooted to the spot, speared all the way through by your burning gaze and Aemond’s victorious one. It was almost furious in its intensity, making the back of Jace’s own eyes prickle with hot tears.
Whether it was anger, frustration or jealousy, he could not tell anymore. His nails were digging crescent moons into his knees through his trousers, but the pain did nothing to soothe the hardness between his legs.
“Aemond,” you called urgently, and something snapped inside of your husband. In an instant he flipped you easily, and your back hit the sheets without great consideration. Legs propped on his slim waist, he kneeled between your parted knees, his face slack with pleasure.
Your voice caught in your throat at the sight—his sapphire seemed to gleam, the thin curtain of his hair falling over his sharp features, and you could not stand it. You threw your head to the side, catching your brother’s desperate gaze just as the mounting pressure inside of you threatened to let out.
Aemond kept looking down, curious, to where your fingers had slid over to your nub, pressing quick circles into it. Pride erupted in his chest as you tightened around his length, your peak finally tearing through you. You cried out, barely hearing Aemond’s dark chuckle over the rushing in your ears, helpless to the waves of pleasure washing over you, making you tremble and clench around his cock.
He fell forward, hiding his face and his grunts between the swells of your breasts, his cock spilling in time with your own pulses, a victorious sort of release shaking his slender frame. Years of tensions seemed to pour out of him and he almost wanted to praise you for it.
Silence fell once more, and dread took over the last remnants of your release. You held yourself utterly still, waiting for Aemond to push himself back up, but he did not. Instead he pressed his forehead further at your breast bone, his breath coming in harsh pants. You dislodged your hand, still caught between your bellies, and uncaring for the wetness at your fingers, and reached for his head.
Palm settling over the crown of his hair, you threw your brother a confused look.
Jacaerys had followed your peak with breathless interest, and now that it was done, he found he still could not breathe. His skin felt too tight, stretched so thin across his muscles and bones that it itched, and it was all more than he could bear. Mayhaps Aemond was tamed for a minute, and he could make a swift exit.
“Perhaps I should go, now that it has—” he tried, only for Aemond to interrupt him with a tutting noise.
He unfurled his slim frame slowly, and his face was perfectly controlled once more. He pulled out of you without ceremony and slid off the bed, stretching and rolling the long muscles that sat beneath his pale skin.
“The night is still young, nephew,” he announced with a grin, clearly parading his bare body, which was now coated in a thin sheen of sweat. “Or perhaps we should be chivalrous and ask the lady. What do you say, princess? Should your brother stay?”
Bringing your knees together to hide yourself, you were taken aback by this sudden suggestion. You had hoped to slither away as soon as duty was done, but this strange display of vulnerability had you curious, and you thought it best not to unleash his anger if you refused—besides, you did not wish to part from Jacaerys quite yet, while you were still reeling from it all, leaving you exposed.
“He can stay,” you simply said, stalling for time, hoping for a way to recover that tender stillness he had displayed. It seemed pleasure of the flesh did not subdue him so easily.
You stood up, grateful for your twin who shot up from his chair and gave you an arm to hold. You looked around for something to cover with, but did not find any robe or dressing gown for you to put on.
Jace, always a thought ahead of you, pulled a sheet from the bed and wrapped it around your quivering shoulders.
Still bare and unashamed, Aemond observed the little scene from the foot of the bed—he had to admit you painted a lovely picture, mirror images of each other, your soft hesitancy colliding with Jace’s obvious fury. The two of you were shaking for different reasons, and you almost looked like a pair of newborn fawns he longed to sink his teeth into.
Thus, he pressed the issue, eager to know what laid behind your restrained gestures and looks.
“Tell me, nephew. I am not so naive to think you have never touched her, but I admit I was surprised to find her still a maid,” he hummed, sharp and crueler than was honorable. “That is an impressive control of your urges, I did not think the likes of you would be capable.”
“Enough of your taunting,” Jacaerys hissed, barely soothed by you running your hand down his arm.
Aemond chuckled darkly. “Do not be so hostile. I am offering. She is mine now, mine to do with as I please, and I think it would like to see you try,” he explained, amused at your puzzled look. “It is a one time offer, nephew. I will not be this generous again.”
If Jacaerys had been disoriented all throughout the day, none of it had prepared him for such a thing. He wondered what there would be to gain from it, if only leverage. Perhaps Aemond wished to give him a taste, only to hold it over his head for the rest of his days, and the thought was as unbearable as it was tempting.
“Disrobe him,” he suggested to you, almost a question, and the shadow of an idea crept up the back of your mind.
Without a word, you raised your hands to the buttons of Jace’s doublet and unclasped the first one, nearest his throat. “Sister,” Jacaerys whispered, his own hands coming to cover yours. “I could still go.”
Instead of an answer, it was a kiss that you gave him, pressing yourself up until your mouth was flush with his, and unashamed. He melted into you by instinct, responding to your passion. Your tongues curled together, practiced, and he barely noticed your fingers slipping from his hold and following the row of clasps down to his waist, tugging at his belt.
Something dark spread behind Aemond’s breastbone, a longing for warmth and the honest familiarity of such a kiss. He found himself insatiably curious and hungry—he wondered how it would be, to witness the coupling of young love, and he knew he wanted to see it only for the satisfaction of holding it in his hand and threatening to crush it.
Belt undone and doublet pushed off his shoulders and onto the floor, Jace was quick to discard his boots, the back of his neck still risen in shivers, ready for this farce to be called off. His heart was in his throat, but the temptation was too much for him to resist, and his cock was hard despite his worries.
“Don’t spill inside her, if you can avoid it,” Aemond commanded, sitting back on the bed and pulling at your sheet until you took a few steps forward and laid back on the mattress, knees parted. “I hear moon tea is quite unpleasant.”
You forced yourself to ignore the heady possibility of such a consequence—bringing Jace’s child into this world, humiliating your husband and forcing him to annul. It would be terribly easy to pretend Aemond had never consummated, thus forcing your brother to act, as he himself was the only witness.
However, proof that this fantasy was nothing but wild imagination, you noticed that the inside of your thighs was wet, unpleasantly so, and you allowed Jacaerys to wipe them before he took his place between your parted legs. He had left his shirt and trousers on, seemingly unwilling to bare himself to Aemond’s gaze, which earned him an amused tilt of the head.
“Shyness? How endearing,” he mocked, but his mirth died when you welcomed Jace into your body, foreheads coming together in shared bliss.
The sweet tightness made Jace’s head spin but he held on, pressing grateful kisses to your cheeks and lips. Euphoria was taking your breath and your voice, and you rocked back against him even though you felt sore, heartbreak and elation twirling together in your chest.
Even though it was only a bite of a poisoned apple, you gladly took it. No matter the twisted pleasure Aemond might have taken in watching you, knowing his offer was one of damnation, you made sure to commit every sigh and touch to your memory.
Stretched at your side, Aemond watched, unraptured—the easy way with which you pressed up into Jace’s hands, the tip of your fingers tracing invisible lines between his freckles, and wondered how sin could look so honest and angelic.
“Never been inside a woman, nephew?” he couldn’t help but ask, and Jace gritted his teeth against a retort. “I took your first and now you take his…” Aemond continued, burrowing closer until he could croon against your temple, pressing a kiss to it, while Jacaerys buried his face in your neck. “You should thank me for it.”
“I am on my knees with gratitude,” Jace replied, more of a hiss than a grunt.
Aemond wanted to chastise him for his impertinence but was taken aback, freezing in slight disbelief at your next move. Instead of reaching for your twin again, it was at the back of his own neck that your hand settled on, pulling him in. He allowed it, letting you lick into his mouth with that passion he had witnessed earlier, unbearable soft and slow.
He returned your kiss, exploring, in hope of tasting the sweetness that seemed to bloom between you and your twin. Some days he envied this state of being born as two—never in his life had he ever felt so tied to someone he could call his own, and he knew that even the satisfaction of ripping you away from your twin’s arms could never fill that absence.
He would have to find contentment in the fact that it was in his mouth that you were moaning as Jacaerys thrusted into you, and it was sweeter than honey on his tongue.
Even as you ran out of breath and broke the kiss you kept him close, your moans fanning over his cheek, your hand a vice at the back of his neck, pulling some of his hair uncomfortably.
“Thank you, husband,” you sighed after a while, and Aemond knew he could not let Jacaerys have this victory.
“Let me give you a hand in pleasing her,” he said, breathless when he would have wanted to sound biting.
He reached down to where your two bodies were joined and pressed at your core. He drew a light circle on it, pressing and teasing until a whine tore out of your throat, and then let his slim fingers find a steady rhythm, pleasuring you in time with Jacaerys’ gradually hurried thrusts.
Fury was scratching at the inside of Jace’s ribs but his heart was too full. For countless nights he had dreamed of having you, of taking what was rightfully his by birth, but given to another by oath, and he almost didn’t care that it was finally offered to him by the man who now could claim ownership over you.
For a moment he lost himself in his worst nightmare and his greatest wish tangled together, and in the way you clenched around him and clung to him, your legs wrapped around his waist, your heels digging in the back of his thighs.
Jace was not allowed the satisfaction of hearing you falling over the edge, instead Aemond swallowed the moans of your release, keeping enough awareness to notice that your twin was falling apart, ready to follow you.
“Enough,” Aemond commanded, his hand curling at the back of Jace’s head and pulling on his curls until he regretfully pulled out of you, allowing himself one slow, final thrust.
Your hand tangled with his around his length and soon, ropes of pearly white were coating your skin, Jace’s groan of ecstasy buried in the side of your neck.
“Well done,” Aemond hummed, and in one last bout of sadistic pleasure, pressed a kiss to the top of Jacaerys’ head, uncaring for the fact that he was still quivering from his release. “You may leave now, I believe you have seen enough to confirm the marriage was consummated,” he instructed as he rose from the bed again, choosing to ignore the renewed hardness between his own legs.
He was unused to succumbing to his desires, and he did not wish to partake in that weakness shared by so many men. He would take you whenever was necessary, he told himself, and no more. It would not do well for him to get used to your warmth.
“You may go, brother,” you added tenderly, and pressed a kiss to Jacaerys’ cheek under Aemond’s cold gaze. The young man nodded with a small smile and picked up his doublet and boots in silence.
Redressing himself, he kept his eyes low on the floor, shame coloring his cheeks and making his lower lip wobble. However when he walked past Aemond to leave the room, he purposefully held his head high despite his obvious emotion.
“Give me a son soon enough, and perhaps I shall allow him to come and play once more,” Aemond then turned to you and hummed, not bothering to check that the door had fully closed behind Jacaerys.
To his great surprise, you did not cower in humilation—instead you stood up much as your brother had done, still bare and your skin barely wiped from the evidence of what had taken place this night. You leveled him with a gaze he loathed to realize was some sort of pity.
“Be tender or be cruel, it matters not,” you said, sounding more sad than anything else. “I will never give you what I gave him.”
Without another word you picked up your cotton shift and slipped it over your body once more, leaving your wedding gown splayed on the back of a chair, discarded and forgotten, and you crossed the room without so much as a glance to him, your bare feet making quiet sounds on the stone floors.
Aemond barely heard the door creak open. He had no word for the heat that burned behind his eye.
Dividers by @zaldritzosrose. Requested by @thewhisperedone ♡
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Jacaerys Velaryon x Twin!Reader & Cregan Stark x Wife!Reader
Summary: It has been too long since you last saw your dear twin brother, Jacaerys, after becoming Lady Stark of Winterfell. Surprisingly, your husband has no qualms about sharing his beautiful lady wife with her twin brother. As long as Jacaerys knows that it is still he, who brings his beloved wife the best pleasure she has ever experienced.
Warnings: SMUT 18+; Targaryen twincest; oral (m and f receiving); male masturbation; voyeurism; technically infidelity (but Cregan is fine with it cause it's Jacaerys); doggy style (again, yes. I'm sorry, but it fit the plot); foul language; threesome
Words: 11k
Notes: No use of (y/n) and no description of the reader. If you do not agree with the warnings, DO NOT read. I'm not responsible for the content you consume.
It was late, the dim glow of candlelight flickering against the ancient stone walls of Winterfell, and your muscles ached. Your husband had once again taken you to heights of passion that left you breathless. The Stark men were known for their virility, a reputation that Cregan carried with pride. Though you had entered this union with apprehension, you found comfort in knowing Cregan Stark was a man of great honour and nobility. What was there not to admire?
Yet, despite the warmth that enveloped you in your new life, a deep ache resided in your heart. You yearned for your beloved twin, Jacaerys, with whom you had shared every joy and sorrow since birth. Until the fateful discussions of your betrothal began, you had envisioned a future where you would never be parted from him. But those dreams had been cruelly shattered beneath the weight of duty and expectation. Still, Jace’s assurances echoed in your mind; he had promised Cregan was worthy of your love, and you knew his praises were not spoken lightly.
Now, six moons had passed since you had left the warmth of Dragonstone to embrace your role as Lady of Winterfell, where the chill of the North wrapped around you like a second skin. The transition had been harsh yet strangely welcome. Your husband, with his quiet strength and reliable presence, had ensured your comfort in every conceivable way. He listened to your hopes and dreams and wrapped you in a love that had begun to soothe your loss. Each shared smile and soft caress deepened your bond. Cregan made sure that you were thoroughly satisfied in your marriage.
Your husband carefully freed himself from your warm embrace, placing a tender kiss upon your forehead—a fleeting touch, but one that spoke volumes of his affection. As he strode through the ancient halls of Winterfell, the flickering torchlight casting shadows upon the stone walls, he held a glass of whiskey in his hand. His keen eyes soon landed upon Jacaerys, who had only arrived two days prior, and his eagerness to be near his beloved sister was evident in the way he fidgeted.
With a smirk tugging at the corners of his lips, Cregan approached the young prince, claiming a seat on the plush, well-worn sofa before the hearth, where the flames danced, spreading warmth throughout the cold hall. “How are you faring in the North, my prince?” his deep voice resonated, breaking through the heavy silence that enveloped them.
Jacaerys looked up, momentarily pulled from his thoughts. “You have shown much hospitality, and I am grateful for that. My sister seems to flourish in the northern air,” he replied, his tone a mindful balance of politeness and reserve.
Cregan chuckled softly, his gaze drifting to the fire as it crackled. “She does indeed find joy here,” he said, a glimmer of mischief in his gaze. “You know my affection for her runs deep. I do everything within my power to ensure her happiness.” The taunting light in his eyes betrayed the amusement he found in Jacaerys’ discomfort, fully aware of the peculiar customs that governed the Targaryens—a family known for their fierce loyalty and their tangled web of desires.
Before allowing Jacaerys to respond, Cregan took another measured sip from his glass, swirling the amber liquid within. His voice held an ominous weight as he spoke, "I overheard you yesterday. Pleasuring my lady wife..." He let the words hang in the air, his eyes glinting dangerously in the dim light of the chamber.
Jacaerys’ heart dropped as he met Cregan’s steady gaze, shock and dread mingling on his face. The Lord of Winterfell was a mountain of a man, both in stature and presence, no stranger to battles. The very spirit of the North. “Cregan…I’m—”
Cregan cut him off with a low chuckle, his voice gravelly. “No need to apologize. I suspected as much.” He leaned back in his chair, a smirk playing at the corners of his lips. “I knew she was no maiden when I first claimed her. She spilt no blood and seemed all too familiar with passions—her cries echoed through the halls, begging for more.” A glint of mischief flickered in his eyes as memories of their wedding night stirred within him, the warmth of it all washing over him.
Jacaerys stared at Cregan, bewilderment etched across his features. How could the man sit there, so unbothered by the knowledge that he had bedded the very woman he now claimed as his own?
“But!” The laughter drained from Cregan’s voice, replaced by a steely seriousness. “Remember, she is my lady, my wife, and she is to bear my heirs. A Stark must always remain in Winterfell.” The warning was clear, the kind of warning that came from a man who had carved his place in the world with blood and honour.
As silence enveloped them, Jacaerys began to gather his fractured thoughts, the weight of his intentions pressing heavily upon him. “Of course. She drank Moon Tea right away. I brought some with me,” he stammered, unwittingly revealing the purpose that had guided his way to Winterfell.
“Ah, so you did spill your seed in her womb,” Cregan mused, narrowing his eyes as if calculating the implications of the prince’s words. "Can’t say I’m surprised. After all, she was yours first, wasn’t she?” His voice had a teasing tone, reminding them that amidst the tension, their fates were still closely linked.
Jacaerys sat with his head bowed, shame flooding through him like cold water. Cregan, once a trusted ally and now a close friend, had become a victim of his actions. The weight of betrayal pressed heavily on his heart. "I did not mean to betray you in this manner, my good Lord," he admitted, his voice steady yet laced with regret. His brown eyes, usually bright, were now shadowed with sincerity. "It is difficult to resist a beauty like her." He cast his gaze downward again, seeking some semblance of justification for his actions.
Cregan leaned back in his chair, a bemused smirk creeping across his lips. "Tell me then... what did you do to her?" The words rolled off his tongue teasingly, lightening the heavy air between them. He leaned back comfortably, a glint of mischief in his eyes.
"Come on, indulge me," he urged, curiosity piqued. To anyone else, his fascination might seem perverse. Still, to Cregan, such matters were mere threads in the intricacy of life. After all, Jacaerys’s actions were but a common act in your ancient bloodline. And deep down, they both knew you were Cregan's now. And no man or God could take you away from him.
Jacaerys squirmed uncomfortably under Cregan's penetrating gaze, a flush of guilt and shame creeping up his neck as he recalled last night's activities. "I... I pleased her, of course," he began hesitantly, unsure how much detail Cregan wished to hear. "My mouth and hands worshipped every inch of her soft skin, my fingers delving into secret places to draw out her sweet cries." He paused, swallowing hard at the recollection.
Jacaerys let out a low groan as your fingers tangled in his hair, his hands gripping your waist possessively. He captured your lips in a searing, passionate kiss, pouring all his pent-up longing and desire into the embrace.
"Mine," he mumbled against your mouth, his tongue delving deep to claim you thoroughly. His hands slid down to grasp your rear, squeezing the firm globes as he pressed your body flush against his own.
He broke the kiss to trail his lips down the column of your throat, sucking and nipping at the sensitive skin. His beard rasped deliciously against your flesh, leaving faint red marks.
"I've wanted this... wanted you... for so long," Jacaerys panted, his voice rough with lust. "To touch you, taste you, feel your naked skin against mine again..."
He pushed the straps of your nightgown down your shoulders, exposing more of your flesh to his hungry gaze. Cupping your breasts, he kneaded the soft bosom, thumbs circling your hardening peaks through the thin fabric.
"I'm going to worship every inch of you," Jacaerys promised darkly, his eyes glinting with wicked intent in the moonlight.
"Then... then I slowly undressed her, baring her skin to my hungry gaze. I caressed every curve, marvelling at the softness of her flesh." Jacaerys' breathing grew heavy and uneven, both from embarrassment and ardour.
"I took my time, wanting to savour every moment of our union."
Jacaerys growled low in his throat as your hands explored his body with such desperate hunger. He quickly shed the remainder of his clothes, tossing them carelessly to the floor until he was bare before you, his manhood standing proud and erect.
"Greedy girl," he teased, a wicked grin on his face as he pushed you back onto the bed, settling his weight between your spread thighs.
He hooked his fingers in your nightgown and practically ripped it off, baring your naked body to his heated gaze. His calloused hand cupped your sex, one long finger delving between your slick folds to stroke your sensitive, aching flesh.
"You are so wet," Jacaerys moaned, his finger sliding deep inside you, curling to stroke that special spot within. "So ready for your brother'..."
He added another finger, pumping them in and out of your clenching heat as his thumb rubbed firm circles around your pearl. Leaning down, he captured one stiff nipple in his mouth, sucking hard as his teeth grazed the sensitive peak.
The prince took a shuddering breath, steeling himself to continue. "I laid her down on the bed. I needed to taste her sweetness." He could feel the heat rising in his body as he spoke, arousal stirring once more at the mere memory of your joining.
Slowly, teasingly, he kissed his way down your body, his tongue and lips exploring every dip and curve with agonizing slowness.
"Patience, little sister," he murmured, his hot breath ghosting over your skin. "I'm going to take my time with you, make you beg so sweetly."
He paused to lave his tongue around your navel before continuing his descent, settling between your splayed thighs. He could smell your arousal, and see your swollen, glistening folds just inches from his face. Jacaerys licked his lips in anticipation.
"Such a pretty little cunt," he praised, running a finger through your dripping slit. "Missed your sweet cunny so much."
Without warning, he buried his face between your thighs, sealing his mouth over your sex in a deep, intimate kiss. His tongue delved between your folds, stroking and probing your most sensitive flesh as he licked up your essence.
Cregan listened intently, a flicker of amusement dancing in his grey eyes as Jacaerys recounted the intimate details of his tryst with you. He leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees, the very picture of a man engaged and intrigued. A wicked grin spread across his rugged features as yesterday's events replayed themselves in his mind's eye.
Cregan had just finished his nightly duties and was about to retire to his chambers when he heard the unmistakable sounds of passion spill out from the private chambers of his new bride. Brow furrowed, he crept closer, pressing an ear to the heavy wooden door.
What he heard made his blood run cold. The wet, obscene sucking sounds, the breathy moans and wanton cries that could only belong to one woman - his pretty wife. And the low, rough groans and filthy words of encouragement - unmistakably the voice of Jacaerys Velaryon.
Cregan listened intently from the doorway, a smirk spreading across his face as he took in every lewd sound and wanton moan spilling from your lips. He could hear the wet, vulgar squelches of Jacaerys' fingers plunging into your dripping cunt.
Cregan's manhood swelled and strained against his breeches as he listened to his brother-in-law worship his wife with such eagerness. He knew all too well the taste of your honeyed essence on his tongue, the feel of your velvety walls gripping him tightly as he fucked you hard and deep.
Nothing Jacaerys did could compare to how Cregan took you, could it? He knew you screamed the loudest, the longest when Cregan split you open on his massive length and pounded you into the bed until you saw stars.
Still, Cregan couldn't deny the eroticism of the scene happening behind the door - his little wife, flushed and writhing in pleasure, begging for your own brother's cock like the desperate slut you were.
"Aye, I've seen the way her body responds to my touch," Cregan murmured, a note of pride in his deep voice. "The way her nipples harden beneath my fingers, like ripe berries begging to be plucked." He chuckled softly, lost momentarily in the memory of your soft gasps and breathy moans.
"The way she arches into me, seeking more, always more." Cregan's lips curled into a smirk. "She's a passionate creature, your sister. It's no surprise she craves the touch of a man."
He sipped his whiskey, enjoying the burn as it slid down his throat. "Tell me, did she ride you with the same fervour shedoes me?" Cregan asked, a challenging glint in his eye. "Did she sink onto your cock with the same eager cries and lustful abandon?"
"I've had her in every room of Winterfell," he boasted a hint of pride in his tone. "On the great table in the banquet hall, bent over the balcony overlooking the godswood, even in the openness of the training yard, not caring who saw her lost in the throes of passion."
Cregan's eyes gleamed with a dangerous light as he leaned in closer, his voice lowering to a conspiratorial whisper, "Did she scream your name as she came undone on your cock, or did she remain silent, saving her cries for when she's with me?" The lord smiled wolfishly, clearly enjoying the taboo conversation.
"She's a wild little thing in the bedchamber," Cregan smirked, "full of untamed passion and desire." He set his glass down with a thud, the alcohol no doubt fueling his bold directness.
Jacaerys met Cregan's challenging gaze with a smirk of his own, not to be outdone by the Lord of Winterfell's brazen boasting. "Ah, but did you hear her scream your name like a prayer to the gods when she found her release?" the prince retorted, a mischievous glint in his brown eyes. "I assure you, my technique is... unparalleled."
He leaned forward, mirroring Cregan's posture, the air charged with camaraderie rather than hostility. "Perhaps it was how I worshipped her body with reverence, like a man honouring a goddess," Jacaerys continued, his voice low and teasing.
Despite the smirk on his lips, there was no genuine malice in Jacaerys' words, only a playful ribbing between two men who had come to know each other intimately through their shared bond with you. Cregan's chest rumbled with laughter, a sound of genuine amusement rather than anger.
"Is that so?" Cregan chuckled, taking another swig of his whiskey. "Well, we'll have to agree to disagree on that account. After all, I've seen how she melts against me, her body moulding to mine like she was made for me alone."
With a final, winning grin and a clap on Jacaerys' shoulder, Cregan stood up from his chair, finishing the last of his whiskey in one long, appreciative gulp. He set the empty glass down on the side table with a soft clink, straightened his tunic and stepped away from the hearth.
"My lady wife awaits," Cregan rumbled, a note of anticipation in his deep voice. "It seems your sister's passion is not so easily sated, even after a night of lover's embraces." He smirked in a self-assured, almost smug manner, well aware of his role in stoking the flames of your desire.
Cregan flicked his gaze back to the fire before turning to leave. The warmth of the flames faded as he stepped out into the chill of the castle halls, his long strides ate up the distance to the bed chambers he shared with his new bride, each step filled with purpose and growing hunger.
As he entered the room, the soft glow of candlelight and the welcoming heat of the hearth illuminated the space, casting a warm glow over the furs and silken sheets.
He took off his clothes methodically, folding his tunic and breeches and setting them aside with a carelessness that spoke of utter ease in his surroundings. Then, clad in nothing but his small clothes, Cregan approached the bed, his grey eyes glinting with a predatory light.
As much as his body ached for yours, Cregan knew that rushing headlong into their coupling would not serve either of them. No, he would take his time, would worship your body with the reverence and attention it deserved... even if the young prince had attempted to lay claim to your heart many times before your wedding day and the night before.
"Did you miss me, my lady?" Cregan asked, his voice a low rumble as he slid beneath the covers beside her. "Or were you still lost in the memory of your beloved twin's touch?" He allowed a smirk to tug at the corner of his mouth, knowing that no matter what pleasure Jacaerys had given you, it could not compare to the devotion and love Cregan held for you.
You stirred from your slumber, blinking away the last vestiges of sleep as you noticed the empty space beside you on the bed. A soft, sleepy groan escaped your lips as your gaze drifted to your husband's larger form looming above you in the dark room.
"Mmh..." you mumbled incoherently, your voice thick with drowsy confusion. "Why aren't you next to me, Cregan?" you whined poutily, reaching out a hand to caress the empty sheets beside you.
Cregan felt a flicker of amusement stir within him at the playful, pouty tone lacing your voice. He lowered himself slightly, pressing a soft, lingering kiss to your furrowed brow, determined to smooth the wrinkle upon your delicate features.
"Did you truly miss me that much, sweetling?" he teased, his deep voice wrapped in an affection that warmed the air between you. His gaze, intense yet tender, bore into yours as he reached out, tucking a lock of hair behind your ear. His calloused fingers brushed against your skin, trailing along the delicate curve of your jaw—a gentle touch that felt reassuring and intimate.
"I'm here now," he continued, the gravity of his tone momentarily giving way to a playful smirk. I had to see to some matters with your brother." The corners of his mouth twitched as memories of his conversation with Jacaerys flickered, a brief lustful glimmer lighting his eyes. The air around you seemed to hold a charged silence, filled with the unspoken bond you had developed.
You blinked at Cregan, your sleepy eyes widening as his words sank in. Your brother's name slipped off your tongue in a drowsy murmur. "Jacaerys?" you asked, leaning into his warm touch instinctively as you tried to shake the last remnants of sleep from your mind. "What matters did you have to discuss with him?" As you spoke, you sat up slowly in the bed, the sheets slipping down to pool around your waist.
Cregan's gaze drifted over your newly exposed skin as you sat up, taking in the way the candlelight danced across your shoulders and the gentle swell of your breasts. He felt a familiar stirring within him, a building heat. He sat on the edge of the bed beside you, his large frame dwarfing yours.
"He spoke of the night you shared," Cregan admitted, his voice low and rough with barely contained lust. "Of the way he touched you, worshipped you..." He leaned in closer, his breath hot against your ear as he whispered, "As if I didn't already know how sweetly you yield to a lover's caress."
Your heart raced as Cregan's words sank in, a blush spreading across your cheeks at the mention of your secret tryst with Jacaerys. You could still feel the ghost of his touch on your skin, and hear the echoes of your stolen whispers and soft moans lingering in the candlelit bedroom.
Cregan's hands slid down to rest on your waist, his fingers splaying across the dip of your hips. He pulled you closer until your bare breasts pressed against his chest, the soft mounds moulding to the hard planes of his body like they were madefor him alone.
Cregan's hands slid higher, skimming over the curve of your ribcage until they cupped the soft weight of your breasts. He kneaded the tender flesh, his thumbs brushing over your nipples until they pebbled beneath his touch.
"Tell me, my dear," Cregan murmured against your ear, his lips brushing the sensitive skin, "who do you think can bring you more pleasure? Your dear brother... or your husband?"
Your breath hitched as Cregan's strong hands caressed your sensitive skin, his touch igniting sparks of pleasure that raced through your veins. You found yourself arching into him instinctively, craving more of his electrifying touch.
"Cregan..." you breathed out, your voice trembling slightly as you gazed up at him through your long lashes. "My brother's touches are gentle, almost reverent... like the soft petals of a rose," you explained, your fingers splaying across the firm expanse of his chest.
"But you..." you continued, your pulse quickening as you leaned into him, your lips a mere breath away from his. "You bring me to heights of ecstasy I never knew existed. Each time we join, it's as if the Gods have smiled upon me, blessing our union."
A fierce blush crept up your neck and painted your cheeks a rosy hue as you admitted, "I find myself to rather enjoy your... more forceful ways of loving me. The way you claim my body, it drives me to the very brink of madness..." you trailed off, your voice barely above a whisper.
Cregan felt a surge of primal male satisfaction at your breathless confession, his heartbeat quickening with the knowledge of the effect he had on you. His hands slid lower, gripping your hips possessively as he pulled you flush against him, the evidence of his arousal pressing insistently against your thigh.
"Is that so?" Cregan growled, a wicked gleam in his grey eyes as he drank in your flushed, wanton expression. "Then allow me to remind you just how thoroughly you belong to me..."
With that, he captured your lips in a searing kiss, his tongue delving deep. One hand slid down to grip the back of your thigh, hiking your leg up to wrap around his waist as he rolled his hips into yours, grinding his hard length against your core.
Cregan's other hand tangled in your hair, tugging your head back to expose the slender column of your throat. He trailed hot, open-mouthed kisses along the sensitive skin, his teeth grazing your racing pulse before he bit down gently, marking you as his.
"Mine," Cregan rumbled against your skin, his voice heavy with desire and possession. "You are mine, now and forever. I will have you screaming my name until there is no doubt who you belong to."
To emphasize his point, Cregan slid a hand between your thighs, his fingers finding your slick heat. He groaned at the evidence of your arousal, his digits sliding through your folds with ease. "So wet for me already, love..." he purred, circling your sensitive pearl with maddening precision. "Tell me, who makes you burn like this? Who sets your body ablaze with need?"
"Oh gods, Cregan..." you whimpered breathlessly, your back arching as jolts of electric pleasure coursing through your body. Gasps and needy whines spilt from your lips, your fingers curling into his firm muscles.
"Fuck," you panted, instinctively rolling your hips against his fingers, seeking more of that friction. "It's you, Cregan. Now fuck me like you mean it," you demanded, your dragon showing its scales.
A low, approving growl rumbled in Cregan's chest as he felt your body come alive beneath his touch, your demands stoking the flames of his desire. Without hesitation, he flipped you onto your stomach, pushing you down into the plush bedding. He straddled your hips, pinning you in place with his large frame.
He touched you in a way that awakened a carnal desire you had never known before him. You craved his dominance, the way he could bend you to his will with a mere touch or a whispered command.
"As my lady commands," Cregan purred darkly, his lips curling into a wicked smirk. His calloused hands slid around to grip your hips, kneading the soft flesh roughly. He slipped a hand beneath your hip, pushing it up and out until your rear was raised and presented to him.
"You have a magnificent ass," Cregan praised, his voice a low rumble as he delivered a sharp slap to one cheek, making you let out a quiet whine in response.
Cregan flipped up your nightgown, exposing your bare cunt to the cool air of the bedroom. He could see the glistening folds of your pussy, the way your arousal clung to your outer lips. Unable to resist, Cregan reached out, delivering another sudden, sharp smack to your rear. The sound of skin connecting with skin filled the candlelit room, followed by a reddening handprint blooming across your tender flesh. You gasped at the unexpected contact, back arching as a sensation raced through you.
Your body trembled with need, as you arched your back, presenting yourself to your husband. Teasing him with the tantalizing curve of your rear, you breathed out your plea.
"Again," you whimpered, biting your lip coyly as you gazed back at him over your shoulder. "Please Cregan, spank me again."
"Such a greedy little thing, aren't you?" Cregan purred, landing a sharp spank on your ass. The sound echoed through the room, followed by your startled gasp. "Demanding your husband fuck you like a she-wolf in a rut." He spanked you again, watching the supple flesh jiggle enticingly.
You arched your back, a throaty moan escaping your lips as Cregan's strong hand connected with the supple curve of your ass. "Mmh!" Your body shuddered in response to the sudden jolt of sensation, a tingling warmth spreading across your skin. "Yes!" You cried out, your hair swaying with the force of his slap. "Please Cregan, more."
Trembling with a mix of pain and pleasure, you pushed your rear up higher, unconsciously offering yourself to him. Presenting the round, perky cheeks of your butt for his punishment. "I need... I need you." you breathed out, your voice ragged with arousal.
Cregan let out a deep, approving growl at your wanton display, his eyes darkening with lust as he drank in the erotic sight of your arched back and raised rear. His calloused hand continued to rain down sharp slaps across the supple globes, watching in satisfaction as they jiggled and reddened beneath his touch.
"Such a needy little minx, begging so sweetly for your husband's cock," Cregan rumbled, delivering another stinging blow. His other hand slid between your thighs, feeling the slick heat of your arousal. "So wet and ready, just from rough handling." He circled your clit with a teasing finger, feeling it swell and throb against his touch.
Cregan leaned down, dragging his tongue along the curve of your spine, tasting the salt of your skin. Slowly he pushed a long finger inside your tight heat, pumping it, relishing the way your walls clenched around the intrusion. "Tell me, sweetling, who makes this sweet cunt weep with need?" He added a second finger, thrusting deeper, harder.
"Oh gods, you Cregan!" you gasped. Pleasure sparked through you at his touch, your slick walls clenching greedily around the digits plunging in and out.
But you couldn't resist stirring his jealous nature, even in your heightened state. "And Jace... oh fuck, the way he touched me, it was... it was incredible." you moaned, dragging out your brother's name.
You knew Cregan would punish you for that, for even mentioning your brother's name while he had you like this. The thought sent a thrill of anticipation through you, your heart racing in your chest.
Cregan's jaw clenched at your brother's name falling from your lips, a surge of jealousy and possession flaring within him. He withdrew his fingers abruptly, leaving your aching cunny empty and wanting.
"Jace, is it?" Cregan growled, his voice a low rumble filled with dark promise. "Let me show you the difference between a prince's tender loving and a man's hungry lust."
He pushed your thighs further apart, baring your glistening folds to his heated gaze. Then he leaned in, his breath hot against your sensitive flesh.
You threw your head back as a throaty scream tore from your throat. The lewd, obscene slurping sounds of Cregan's hungry mouth devouring your dripping sex filled the room, mingling with your wanton cries of ecstasy.
"Oh gods, yes!" you keened, fingers scrabbling at the sheets beneath you as jolts of pleasure coursed through your veins. "Don't stop!"
Your heart raced, pounding against your ribs as you pushed your hips back shamelessly. The depraved act only fueled the fire burning in your core, clear juices of your arousal dripping down your trembling thighs.
"Fuck, Cregan!" you panted, your voice ragged and breathless.
Cregan latched his mouth onto your cunny, his tongue delving between your slick folds to lap at your essence. He groaned at the taste of your arousal, his hands gripping your hips hard enough to bruise as he feasted on your dripping cunt like a starving man. His tongue circled your clit, flicked over it, and suckled on it greedily as his lips and mouth worked tirelessly to bring you to the pinnacle of pleasure.
His hands gripped your hips tighter, pulling your ass back against his face as he licked and sucked and devoured you like a starving man. The obscene sounds of his greed filled the room, mingling with your shameless screams of ecstasy.
Tears of pure ecstasy streamed down your flushed cheeks, your hair in a wild mess. Drool dribbled from the corner of your slack mouth, your jaw hanging open in a silent scream. Cregan's skilful tongue and lips devoured your most intimate places with a hunger, reducing you to a writhing, mewling mess.
At that moment, you knew with absolute certainty that not even the most skilled harlots could compare to you at this moment.
Cregan continued his relentless assault, spurred on by your screams and the knowledge that he was reducing you to this pleading mess. He could feel your body tensing, your thighs quaking against his head as your climax approached.
"Not... not yet, love," Cregan commanded, pulling back just long enough to growl the words against your slick flesh. The loss of his mouth on your cunny makes you whine pathetically.
As Cregan's skilled mouth continued to work its magic, consumed by a primal hunger as he devoured his bride's dripping sex, the sound of approaching footsteps echoed in the torchlit corridor outside their bedchamber. Unbeknownst to the lost-in-passion couple, Jacaerys had been making his way back to his chambers after his discussion with Cregan.
However, the prince's steps faltered as he heard the unmistakable sounds of his sister's ecstasy spilling out from behind the heavy oak door. Your screams of "Fuck, Cregan!" and the wet, obscene noises of a man feasting on a woman's most intimate place brought him up short. For a moment, he stood there, heart pounding, as he listened to the lewd symphony playing out mere feet away.
"Oh gods, yes!" he heard you cry out, your voice ragged with pleasure. "Don't stop!"
A surge of jealous fury flooded Jacaerys at the sound of Cregan's name falling from his sister's lips in such a context. He clenched his fists at his sides, fighting the urge to barge into the room and tear his rival away from you. But even through the haze of his anger, he couldn't help but picture the scene - his beautiful sister, writhing in ecstasy on the bed as her new husband indulged greedily on her dripping cunt.
Despite the jealousy, Jacaerys palmed his hardening length through his breeches, imagining he was the one bringing his darling twin to such heights of pleasure.
He drew near to the door, his heart thundering in his chest. Jacaerys swallowed hard, his hand hovering uncertainly over the doorknob. A part of him knew he should leave to give you and your new husband the privacy you deserved. But another part that still ached with longing for your touch, urged him to enter. To see with his own eyes the passion that set his sister's blood aflame.
Jacaerys hesitated a moment longer before quietly pushing open the heavy oak door, his heart hammering wildly in his chest. As he stepped into the bedchamber, his eyes widened in shock at the utterly depraved scene unfolding before him.
There, in the centre of the room, was the bed. And there, upon the bed, was a sight that stole his breath away. His precious twin, his sweet sister, was on her hands and knees, her back arched in a way that thrust her hips up and presented the glistening, dripping folds of her sex to Cregan's hungry mouth.
The sight of Cregan's dark head nestled between his sister's thighs, of his mouth greedily devouring your most intimate place, made Jacaerys' heart clench with a pang of bitter envy. The nasty slurping sounds filling the room, punctuated by your shameless cries of pleasure and guttural moans.
"Fuck, Cregan! Yes, yes!"
Jacaerys stood frozen, hardly able to believe his eyes at how his sister was allowing herself to be taken, so wantonly and without shame. Drool spilt from the corner of your slack mouth as you lost yourself in pleasure, totally unaware of your brother's presence.
He watched, enraptured and appalled in equal measure, as Cregan pushed you closer and closer to the edge of ecstasy with each pass of his tongue, each greedy suckle of your swollen clit. The sight of his sister's pleasure was breathtaking and breathtakingly lewd, your body glistening with sweat and your arousal dripping down your quivering thighs. He had never seen his sweet, innocent sister so utterly consumed by carnal pleasure... it was almost too much for the young prince to bear.
Under his robes, Jacaerys' manhood strained against the confines of his breeches, the thick length throbbing and aching for release. He palmed himself through the fabric, his breath growing ragged as he watched Cregan devour your sex like a starving man.
You gasped in shock as you turned to see Jacaerys standing in the doorway, his eyes wide. Embarrassment flushed through you, colouring your cheeks a deep shade of red.
"J-Jacaerys!" you cried out, your voice catching on a desperate moan you couldn't quite suppress. You were mortified for him to see you like this - on your hands and knees, drool spilling from your slack mouth as Cregan feasted greedily on your dripping cunt. It was a sight so foul and vulgar, so far removed from the sweet, innocent girl he knew.
He had never witnessed you in such a state of shameless abandon before. Always, his lovemaking had been gentle and tender, laying you down like a true gentleman before worshipping your body with soft, respectful touches. Seeing you mewling and writhing in ecstasy, your round ass raised and presented to your husband's hungry mouth... it had to be a shock for him surely.
He swallowed hard, his eyes roaming over your arched back, the reddened globes of your ass.
"Sweet sister..." Jacaerys breathed out, his voice thick with shock and a confusing mix of jealousy, anger, and reluctant arousal. He couldn't tear his eyes away from the erotic spectacle.
"Brother, please," you gasped out between desperate moans and whimpers, your back arching as Cregan continued his relentless assault on your sex. "Don't look..." You couldn't bring yourself to beg him to stay, yet you couldn't bring yourself to beg him to flee.
Cregan glanced up at Jacaerys, his eyes glinting with a wicked, almost taunting light. He licked his lips, savouring the taste of your arousal. "Why don't you join us, Your Grace?" Cregan invited, his tone dripping with mocking deference. "Your sister is a feast that begs to be shared."
Before you could utter a word of protest or pleading, Cregan's skilful tongue pushed you over the edge. Your body convulsed, back arching as you came with a loud, shameless cry that echoed through the room. "Ahhh!" you screamed, your vision going white as your eyes rolled back in sheer ecstasy.
Wave after wave of raw, primal bliss crashed over you, your inner walls clenching and fluttering wildly around Cregan's plundering tongue. You gripped the silken sheets beneath you like a lifeline as you rode out your intense climax, your body shaking like a leaf.
Cregan groaned against your flesh, the vibrations only heightening your pleasure as he worked you through your intense climax with skilled licks and sucks.
Jacaerys stood rooted to the spot, his mouth agape as he watched your body undulate in the throes of ecstasy. He had never seen such a display of sensual bliss from his sister before, and it both shocked and aroused him deeply.
Cregan pulled back slightly, watching with smug satisfaction as your body shuddered and jerked, your honey dripping down your quivering thighs. He licked his lips, savouring the taste of your release. "That's it, love," he praised, his voice a low, arrogant rumble that carried to Jacaerys' ears. "Let it all out. Let your brother hear what a wanton little thing you are for your husband."
"Sister!" Jacaerys gasped, his voice strangled with emotion. He couldn't tear his gaze away from the erotic spectacle unfolding before him, even as a part of him recoiled at the display. This was not the sweet, gentle girl he knew and loved... this was a creature of pure, unbridled lust.
Cregan rose to his feet, looming over your still-trembling form like a conquering warrior. He licked his lips, savouring the lingering taste of your climax on his tongue. The smug smirk playing across his lips glistened with your essence in the candlelight.
Jacaerys glared at Cregan, his jaw clenched tight with a mix of jealousy, anger, and reluctant arousal. As much as he despised the man's arrogance, he couldn't deny the way his groin throbbed at the erotic sight of his sister's limp, thoroughly pleasured body.
Slowly, hesitantly at first, Jacaerys took a step forward. Then another. With each step, he felt a growing sense of transgression, of crossing an invisible line. But the pull of lust was too strong to resist.
"I'll have you know my sister is not some... some harlot," Jacaerys growled, even as he came to stand beside the bed, looking down at your trembling form. His eyes raked over your body, taking in every intimate detail - the way your breasts heaved with each ragged breath, the glistening folds of your pussy...
"I... I'm not jealous," he lied, his voice strained. But as he spoke, his hand drifted down to adjust his straining erection through his breeches, betraying his true desires. "I'm just... I'm just concerned for her well-being."
Jacaerys swallowed hard, his heart hammering in his chest as he looked down at your nude, trembling form splayed out before him and Cregan. He couldn't believe what he was about to do, but the sight of you so wantonly pleasured had ignited a fire in his loins that he couldn't ignore.
"The offer stands, Your Grace," Cregan said smugly, his hand still possessively groping and kneading the soft flesh of your ass. "Why don't you come to claim your share?"
With that, Cregan grabbed your hips and flipped you onto your back, making you shriek and leaving you staring up at them both - your husband with his arrogant smirk and your brother with his conflicted, lust-filled gaze. Your legs fell open, giving them an unobstructed view of your dripping cunt.
You were flushed and panting beneath their appraising gazes, your breasts heaving with each ragged, uneven breath.
The fabric of your nightgown still clung to your chest, but you knew it wouldn't be long before Cregan tore it away completely. Soon, you would be bare and exposed before them both, a delight for their eyes and hands and mouths to devour.
Cregan licked his lips as he drank in the delicious sight of your naked body splayed out wantonly before them. He could see the way your brother's eyes roamed hungrily over your nude form, lingering on the swell of your breasts and the glistening folds of your sex. The air was thick with a tension that made Cregan's cock throb urgently against your thigh.
"That's right, princess," Cregan purred, trailing a finger along the curve of your breast, feeling your nipple stiffen at his touch. "You're going to be a feast for both of our appetites tonight."
"You're playing a dangerous game, Stark," Jacaerys warned, his voice low and rough. "She is my sister. Honour demands that I protect her from... from men like you."
Yet even as he spoke, Jacaerys found his hand drifting closer to your thigh, his fingers grazing your soft skin. He could feel the heat radiating off your body, could see the way your chest rose and fell with each desperate breath.
"Sweet sister," Jacaerys breathed, his voice strangled with a mix of shock and desire. "I must confess... I've never seen you like this before. Never imagined..." He trailed off, unable to find the right words, his mouth suddenly dry.
Cregan smirked at the prince's obvious arousal, his hand still possessively gripping your hip. "Aye, it's a sight to behold, isn't it? Your sister's sweet cunny, so ripe and ready for the taking."
Jacaerys swallowed hard, his eyes flicking up to meet Cregan's arrogant gaze before dropping back to your naked body. "Yes," he admitted, his voice low and rough. "And I find myself... craving a taste."
With a rough tug, Cregan ripped the flimsy fabric away, baring your naked body entirely to both their hungry gazes. Your breasts bounced free, the flush peaks puckered and begging for attention. Your cunny soaked with arousal, the delicate folds dewy and swollen with desire.
You gasped softly as Cregan tore away the fabric of your nightgown. With a teasing smile, you slipped the ruined garment off your shoulders. It joined the growing pile of tattered nightgowns you had accumulated since marrying Cregan - this was the third one this month...
"My, my, so eager are you to have me bare and wanting," you murmured, arching an eyebrow at your husband. "A simple 'take it off' would have sufficed, my dear husband. But I must admit, there's something thrilling about being ravished."
"My brother, you look as though you've never seen me before," you tease softly, reaching up to walk your fingers along the swell of your breasts. "It was only yesterday you had me? Have you already forgotten your sister's charms?" You shrug, the movement making your breasts bounce slightly, drawing their eyes to the ripe mounds.
Jacaerys swallowed hard as he watched your breasts, jiggling maddeningly with each subtle movement. The way you spoke, so calmly and playfully, only served to heighten his agitation. He couldn't recognise the lustful creature before him.
"I... I have not forgotten," he managed to say, his voice weakened with desire. "But this... this is different. Seeing you so brazenly needy..." He could hear his pulse pounding in his ears and could feel his cock throbbing urgently against the confines of his breeches.
Cregan glanced at Jacaerys, his smirk widening at the prince's hungry gaze. "Isn't she a sight, Jacaerys? I've never seen a woman more in need of a man's touch."
Jacaerys swallowed hard, his eyes flicking from your breasts to your dripping sex. He could see the glistening arousal coating your thighs, the way your cunt clenched and fluttered as if begging to be filled.
"I've touched you a thousand times before," Jacaerys murmured, his eyes locked with yours. "But never like this. Never with such... hunger."
And with that admission, his hand cupped the heat of your sex, his fingers delving into your dripping folds. He groaned at the way your walls clenched around him, your slick arousal coating his digits.
"Sweet sister," Jacaerys breathed. "You're so wet. So ready."
You gasped sharply as Jacaerys plunged his fingers deep into your aching core, your inner walls clenching greedily around the intrusion. "Mmh, oh," you whimpered, gazing into his eyes with a hooded, lust-filled gaze. "Please, I need... I need you to take me. Hard." You arched your back, pressing your dripping sex more firmly against his hand. "Not soft caresses, but a man's forceful touch. Claim me as Cregan has, make me scream your name."
Cregan licked his lips as he watched Jacaerys plunge his fingers deeper into your dripping sex, your inner walls clenching greedily around the invading digits. Your needy whimpers and moans filled the air, spurring the prince's desires.
Your heart raced, your pulse pounding in your ears as you writhed beneath his touch. You yearned to feel his hard length driving into you, stretching you, filling you utterly.
"Don't hold back," you pleaded breathlessly, reaching down to guide his other hand to your breast. "I want to feel owned, possessed. Ruined." you gasped again as he squeezed the soft mound. "Take me, Jacaerys. Fuck me hard."
Jacaerys shuddered at your beggings, his eyes darkening with lust at your shameless words. He could feel Cregan watching him, smirking at the prince's obvious arousal, but all thoughts of your husband faded away as he lost himself in the allure of your naked, trembling body.
With a low, possessive growl, Jacaerys captured your lips in a searing kiss, his tongue plundering your mouth with a force that stole your breath away. He pressed his body against yours, letting you feel the hard, thick length of his cock straining against his breeches.
"My princess," he breathed against your lips, "I will give you what you need."
Jacaerys ripped off his doublet and tunic, baring his muscular chest to your heated gaze. He kicked off his boots and tore away his breeches until he stood naked and magnificent before you, his cock jutting out proudly from a thatch of dark curls.
Cregan quickly shed his clothing, his massive cock springing free, already leaking and throbbing with need. He grasped himself, stroking the thick shaft lazily as he watched.
"Tell me, Your Grace," he asked with a wicked grin, "have you ever taken your dear sister like the vixen she is?" He stroked himself lazily as he awaited Jacaerys' response. "Have you ever gripped her hips and pounded into her from behind, spanking that perky ass as you used her for your pleasure?"
"No, I must confess I have not. I have always been gentle and considerate with you, sister. But now..." He trailed off, his eyes flicking down to your dripping sex before meeting Cregan's gaze. "I find myself wanting to take you in a way I never dared before. Hard and fast, until you scream."
Cregan chuckled darkly, giving his rigid shaft a slow pump. "Then take my advice, Your Grace. Put our princess on her hands and knees, and fuck her like the wild beast she is. Claim her cunt from behind."
"Not inside her, Jacaerys," Cregan warned, his voice rough with lust. "You're not to spill your seed in her womb. That privilege is mine, as her husband." He gripped his cock tighter, pumping it slowly as he spoke. "But by all means, have your fun with her needy body. Show me how you pleasure my bride. But do not forget, regardless of how loudly she screams, she is mine."
Your brother ignored Cregan's arrogant words, instead focusing solely on the woman beneath him. Jacaerys leaned down, his lips brushing against your ear. "I'm going to make you scream, dear sister," he promised darkly. "Scream until the whole castle hears who brings you such ecstasy."
Before you could respond, he had you flipped over onto your hands and knees in one swift, forceful motion. You gasped as you felt the cool air kiss your exposed, tingling skin.
Glancing back over your shoulder, you could see the raw hunger in both their eyes as they drank in the sight of your upturned rear.
Jacaerys gripped your hips hard, his fingers sinking into the soft flesh of your ass as he positioned himself behind you. He could feel the heat radiating off your skin, could see the way your body trembled with anticipation.
"Look at that ass, Cregan," Jacaerys growled, giving your cheek a sharp smack. The sound echoed obscenely in the room, and he watched with dark satisfaction as the red handprint bloomed on your skin.
"Such a perfect, ripe peach." He gripped your hips tighter and lined himself up with your dripping entrance. The head of his cock nudged against your folds, coating itself with your arousal.
With that, he thrust forward, burying himself to the hilt in one stroke. A low groan tore from his throat at the feel of your tight, wet heat enveloping him so perfectly. He paused for a moment, savouring the sensation and letting you adjust before he began to move.
"Yes," you gasped out, your back arching as Jacaerys hilted himself fully inside you. "Jacaerys!"
Emboldened by your wanton encouragement, Jacaerys set a fast, rough pace. He gripped your hips bruisingly as he drove into you again and again, the obscene sound of flesh slapping against flesh filling the room. His heavy balls slapped against your clit with each powerful thrust, the intense stimulation making you see stars.
"Does that feel good, little sister?" Jacaerys growled, his breath coming hard and fast as he took you. "Do you like the way your brother is fucking this needy cunt?"
Cregan watched, stroking his cock slowly as he enjoyed the show. "That's it, Jacaerys," he praised, his voice a low, arrogant rumble. "Fuck her like the she-wolf in heat she is."
"Ohhh, god!" you screamed, your voice ragged and desperate as Jacaerys slammed into you, his thick cock stretching you deliciously. Tears of overwhelming pleasure streamed down your flushed cheeks as he took you with force and hunger.
With trembling hands, you reached out blindly, craving the feel of Cregan's hard flesh in your grasp. But Jacaerys quickly pushed your upper body down against the bed, pinning you beneath him as he claimed you. The new angle allowed him to plunge even deeper, hitting that secret spot inside you that made you see stars.
"Jacaerys!" you wailed, your back arching as you surrendered yourself completely to the intense sensations consuming you. "You feel so good!" you moaned shamelessly, too lost in ecstasy to care about anything but the feeling of your twin's cock driving into you relentlessly.
Through the haze of pleasure, you could see Cregan watching you, stroking his impressive length as he enjoyed the depraved spectacle of his wife being taken by her brother. The knowledge that you were putting on such a show onlyheightened your excitement, and you could feel your second climax fast approaching.
"Such a pretty girl," Jacaerys praised, his voice ragged and uneven. "Love your pretty body, love you," he whispered the last part, getting lost in the pleasure.
Jacaerys pistoned into you wildly, grunting and whining. His fingers dug into the soft flesh of your waist, gripping you and occasionally caressing your sweat-slick skin as he rutted into you like a man possessed.
"Fuck!" Jacaerys snarled, his hips slapping against yours with brutal force. "You feel so fucking good around my cock. I can't... I can't hold back..."
He leaned over you, covering your smaller body with his own as he fucked you with deep strokes.
"Scream for me, dear sister," Jacaerys demanded, his voice a low rasp. "Let the whole castle hear who is claiming this pretty cunt. Let them know that the princess is being fucked raw by her brother."
Cregan watched, stroking himself in time with Jacaerys' frenzied thrusts. He could see your face, contorted in ecstasy, tears streaming down your flushed cheeks as you surrendered yourself completely to the pleasure of your brother's cock.
"Look at her, Jacaerys," Cregan taunted, his hand a blur on his shaft. "Look at the way our princess is crying on your dick. She's loving every second of being split open on her brother's cock."
Jacaerys let out a feral growl at Cregan's taunt, somehow fucking you even harder. The room filled with the lewd sounds of your coupling - the slap of flesh on flesh, the creaking of the bed frame as it strained under the force of Jacaerys' thrusts, your high, keening cries of rapture.
"I'm going to cum, Jacaerys!" you cried out, your voice raw and desperate. "Don't stop, please!"
He gripped your hips, pulling you back to meet each powerful thrust. The obscene sound of flesh slapping against flesh filled the room, punctuated by your desperate cries of rapture and your brother's grunts of pleasure.
Your climax crashed over you like a tidal wave, your inner walls clamping down around Jacaerys' pistoning cock like a vice. "Ahh!" you screamed, body trembling as pleasure exploded through every nerve ending. Your juices gushed out around his plundering length, making vulgar squelching noises as he fucked you through your intense orgasm.
The sensation of your cunt gripping him so tightly, dripping with your essence, proved too much for Jacaerys. With a hoarse cry of your name, he yanked his hips back, his rigid shaft slipping from your quivering sex with a gush of fluid.
"Fuck!" Jacaerys roared, his voice strained with pleasure as his cock erupted. Thick, hot ropes of seed sprayed from the head, painting your upturned ass and the small of your back in a lewd display of your brother's spend.
Jacaerys slumped over you, panting harshly as the last spurts of his release dripped onto your skin. "Sweet sister," he gasped out, his hands still gripping you possessively. "I've never felt anything like that before..." He trailed off as he rolled to lay next to you, recovering from his intense climax.
Your body trembled and shook as the final waves of your explosive orgasm rippled through you. Knees weak and quivering, they collapsed beneath you, leaving you sprawled wantonly on the bed, chest heaving and skin glistening with a thin sheen of sweat.
But your respite was short-lived. Through the fog of pleasure, you felt the tap-tap-tap of a hard, throbbing cock against your flushed cheek. Your gaze fluttered open lazily, following the rigid shaft up to see Cregan looming over you, his eyes dark with lust and a smug, arrogant smirk playing across his lips.
"Mmm, that was quite the show you two put on," Cregan purred, rubbing the leaking tip of his cock over your cheek, smearing his arousal across your skin. "You screamed so sweetly for your brother, my dear wife. I do hope he satisfied you." He gripped himself and tapped his erection insistently against your mouth, the thick head pressing demandingly at your lips. "But now, it's time for your husband to have his turn. You're my wife, and I intend to remind you of that fact. Open up, princess."
Jacaerys watched, still panting softly as he recovered. He saw Cregan looming over your sprawled form, his cock tapping insistently at your lips. A flicker of jealousy sparked in his chest at the sight, but it was quickly overwhelmed by the depraved thrill of watching his sister service her husband.
Your brother's eyes met yours, dark and heavy with lingering lust. "Don't keep your lord waiting, dear sister," Jacaerys murmured, his voice still rough from their coupling. "Show him the depths of your devotion. Take his cock like the dutiful wife you are."
"Mmmm, yes husband," you nodded your head obediently and got into a comfortable enough position to service him.
Beside you, Jacaerys watched the exchange with a mix of awe and lingering arousal. He could see the way Cregan manhandled his twin, the way you submitted so sweetly to his demands.
You gazed up at Cregan with hooded, sultry eyes as you wrapped your hand around his thick, pulsing shaft. You could feel the heat radiating off his skin and could see the way his cock throbbed eagerly in your grasp. Slowly, you licked your lips before leaning in and dragging your tongue along his length.
"Mmmm, you taste so good, my lord," you purred, your voice low and seductive. You swirled your tongue around the swollen head, lapping up the bead of precum that leaked from the tip. Then, with a moan, you parted your lips and took him into your mouth, inch by thick inch, until your nose was buried in the musky curls at the base of his shaft.
Cregan groaned, his head falling back as your hot mouth engulfed his aching cock. His fingers tangled in your blonde hair, gripping the silky strands as he guided your head to take him deeper. "Ohh, that's it," he growled, his hips rocking slightly as he fucked your face with shallow thrusts. "Take it all, my needy little wife. Show me how much you love your husband's cock."
You could feel him, so hard and heavy on your tongue, stretching your lips wide. But you were no stranger to your husband's cock, having pleasured him countless times before. You relaxed your throat and took him deep, holding him there as you gazed up at him with lust-filled eyes.
Your hand pumped what little of his shaft remained outside your lips, stroking him in time with the bobbing of your head. You could feel him twitch and throb against your tongue, could taste the saltiness of his skin and the first drops of his pleasure. You moaned around his thick length, the vibrations making his cock jump and pulse in your mouth.
He began to rock his hips, fucking your face with slow, deliberate strokes. His heavy balls lightly smacked against your chin with each thrust, a lewd reminder of his virility and your subservient role.
Jacaerys watched, transfixed, as your lips stretched obscenely around Cregan's thick shaft. He could see the way your throat bulged with each thrust and could hear the wet, sloppy sounds of you suckling your husband's dick. The sight sent a fresh surge of blood rushing to his own spent cock, making it twitch and stir against his thigh.
"That's our princess," Jacaerys murmured, his voice low and rough with renewed arousal. "Such a good little wife, so eager to please her lord." He reached out to gently pet your head.
You could feel Cregan's cock pulsing. His fingers tightened in your hair, holding you in place as he rutted into you, chasing his pleasure. Drool leaked from the corners of your mouth as he fucked your face, grunting and groaning above you.
Glancing over at Jacaerys, Cregan smirked arrogantly. "I must say, Jacaerys, your sister has a talented mouth. No wonder you couldn't resist her. I'm glad to have such a skilled little bride."
Cregan smirked down at you, his eyes glinting with dark satisfaction as he used your mouth. "Such a good girl, taking me so deep," he praised roughly. "You love having your husband's cock in your throat, don't you? Love being put in your place."
He punctuated his words with a particularly deep thrust, holding himself there as he let you gag and choke around his thick length. The feel of drool dripping down your chin only spurred him on.
The sight sent a fresh surge of blood rushing to Jacaerys' own spent cock, making it twitch and stir against his thigh. Your brother gripped himself as he watched, stroking in time with Cregan's thrusts. "Yes, dear sister," Jacaerys rasped, his voice rough. "Always been so good with your mouth, haven't you?" he murmured, reaching down to palm the globes of your ass. He could feel the sticky evidence of his release coating your skin.
You gazed up at Cregan with lust-filled, tearful eyes as he used your throat, spit dripping down your chin. The praise and the thick, hard length pulsing deep in your throat made your head spin with arousal. You didn't want to admit it, but being desired, being wanted, being taken and used by your husband and brother thrilled you in ways you could hardly express.
The knowledge that it was your dear twin watching, stroking himself to the sight of you being so thoroughly used, sent a shameful surge of heat straight to your core.
A muffled moan escaped you, vibrating around Cregan's pistoning cock as you submitted to his lustful demands. Being the object of such intense desire, of such primal, animalistic desire, stirred something deep within you.
Cregan felt your moan reverberate around his throbbing cock, the sensation pushing him closer to the edge. "Fuck, darling," he grunted, his grip on your hair tightening. "The way you moan around my dick, so desperate and needy..." He punctuated his words with a sharp thrust, burying himself deep in your convulsing throat.
Jacaerys watched, stroking himself in time with Cregan's pace. The sight of your tear-streaked face, the lewd sounds of your gagging and choking, the slack, drooling lips stretched taut around Cregan's pistoning shaft...
"You're a dirty girl, princess," Jacaerys raspy. "So hungry for cock, for the taste of your husband's seed. I've never seen such a wanton creature before."
Cregan smirked down at you, his eyes glinting with pride and smug satisfaction. "She's my wife," he declared, punctuating the statement with a rut of his hips. "A princess, but my princess, to use as I please. And I please to fill this greedy throat with my cum."
Cregan slammed into you one last time, his cock pulsing and jerking as he found his release. Thick, hot ropes of seed flooded your mouth and throat, the salty, slightly bitter taste of his spend coating your tongue. He groaned long and low, grinding his hips against your face as he emptied himself down your convulsing gullet.
"Fuck!" Cregan roared, his eyes squeezing shut in bliss as he pumped load after load of his seed directly down your throat. His fingers tangled carefully in your hair, holding you in place.
Jacaerys couldn't hold back any longer at the erotic sight, his cock pulsing and spurting his second load of the night, painting your ass and back with his hot, sticky seed as he imagined it was your hungry cunt gripping him tight...
You swallowed every last drop of Cregan's hot, thick seed, feeling it slide down your throat. As he pulled out with a groan, you let his softening cock slip from your mouth with a lewd pop.
Gazing up at him through a sheen of tears and lust, you lovingly licked his slick shaft clean, swirling your tongue around the sensitive head before dragging it along the throbbing underside.
"Mmmm, you taste divine, my lord husband," you purred, your voice raspy from the thorough fucking your throat had received. You continued to lap at his cock, laving every inch with kittenish licks until his hips began to twitch and jerk, his fingers pulling almost painfully at your hair as he whimpered.
"Sweet gods, woman," Cregan gasped out, easing your head back to put an end to your ministrations lest he find himself growing hard once more. "You seek to undo me, don't you? Such a wicked, insatiable little minx..."
You merely smiled up at him, your eyes sparkling with mischief and a deep satisfaction at having pleased your husband so thoroughly. Your tongue darted out to catch a stray drop of his release on your lip before you sat back on your heels, the cool air kissing your slick skin and making you shiver.
Behind you, you could feel the heat of Jacaerys' gaze as he no doubt admired your glistening rear and the sticky evidence of his second climax.
Cregan gently wiped the tears and saliva from your face with a soft cloth, his touch tender after the roughness of moments before. He cupped your chin, tilting your face up to meet his gaze. "Look at you," he murmured, a rare softness in his voice. "Such a beautiful woman, taking your husband so well."
He leaned down, capturing your lips in a deep, possessive kiss. His tongue delved into your mouth, no doubt tasting himself on your tongue. The kiss was full of satisfaction and a hint of awe at your enthusiasm.
Breaking the kiss, Cregan trailed his fingers down your neck, over your collarbone, to gently squeeze the soft mounds of your breasts. "You please me greatly, wife," Cregan praised, his voice a low rumble in his chest.
Cregan continued his tender ministrations, lavishing your skin with soft kisses and gentle caresses.
You melt into Cregan's gentle touches, a soft hum of contentment escaping your lips. Gazing up at him, you give your lord husband a loving smile, your eyes shining with adoration and lingering desire. You lean into his caress, savouring the tender brush of his fingers against your cheek.
Behind you, you feel the bed dip as Jacaerys comes to kneel. He nuzzles into the sensitive spot just below your ear, his breath sending pleasant shivers down your spine.
"Mmmm, I could get used to this," you murmur, tilting your head to give your twin better access to your neck. "Being worshipped and praised by my two favourite men."
Jacaerys nuzzled into the nape of your neck, pressing soft kisses to your damp skin as he wrapped his arms around your waist possessively. "You deserve to be worshipped, dear sister," he murmured, his lips brushing against your ear. "A beautiful, insatiable creature like you..."
He swept your hair aside, exposing the elegant line of your throat. Jacaerys pressed his lips to your racing pulse, feeling it flutter beneath his touch. His hands slid down to your hips and pulled you back against him.
In front of you, Cregan watched with indulgent amusement as his wife melted under her brother's attentions. He leaned in, his breath hot against the other side of your neck. "Isn't she magnificent?" Cregan asked rhetorically, his fingers dancing over your collarbone.
Cregan placed a trail of kisses along your jaw, down to your chin, before tilting your face towards him. He claimed your mouth in a deep, sensual kiss, his tongue delving past your parted lips to stroke along yours.
You melt into their touches, one hand coming up to tangle in Cregan's dark hair as he kisses you deeply, his tongue stroking along yours. Your other hand reaches back to grip Jacaerys' hair, anchoring yourself to him.
Jacaerys presses against your back, his strong arms wrapping around your waist to pull you flush against him. You moan into Cregan's mouth and arch into your brother's embrace as his lips worship the column of your throat.
"You're my wife, and I trust you both," Cregan said with a nod to Jacaerys. "As long as I'm present, I have no objections to you sharing intimate moments with my lady. In fact," he added with a smirk, "I find it rather arousing to watch you pleasure each other." He leaned in closer, his voice lowering. "Just remember, dear wife, that sweet cunt belongs to me. No matter how many times your brother fucks you, no matter how much you scream and cum on his cock, you're still my wife. Your womb is mine to fill."
You gazed up at Cregan, your heart fluttering in your chest as you took in his rugged, handsome features. Unable to resist, you peppered his chiselled face with soft, loving kisses, your lips brushing against his skin like the wings of a butterfly.
"My darling husband," you murmured between kisses, your voice breathy with lingering desire, "you honour me with your blessing. I am yours, body and soul, now and forever." You nuzzled into his cheek, breathing in his masculine scent. "I long for the day I can carry your child, to swell with the evidence of our love."
Cregan's eyes softened as he listened to your heartfelt declaration, tenderness flickering in their stormy depths. He brought a hand up to cup your cheek, his calloused thumb brushing gently over your kiss-swollen bottom lip.
Jacaerys met Cregan's gaze, a matching smirk on his lips as he felt your slick arousal coating his fingers. "Your wife is exquisite, my lord," he murmured, pumping two long digits into your tight channel. "I look forward to sharing her many pleasures with you."
Cregan nodded, a satisfied smirk playing at the corner of his mouth. "Good. I'm glad we understand each other." His hand slid down your side, over the curve of your hip, to where Jacaerys' fingers already teased your dripping slit.
your head whips around at the slam of your room and you stand with wide eyes at the red eyed prince letting out shaky breaths as he swiftly makes his way towards you.
“jace.”
he pulls you into him and falls onto the bed where he lays on top of you, shoving his head into your neck while he lets out weak sobs. “she is being unreasonable” you place your head in his hair while letting out a deep breath. You knew well of his distain for his mothers idea him having ranted for far too long to you about it earlier that same day, to have the low born men and women attempt to claim dragons. bastards.
it was sensitive for him. you knew this far too well. He had gone to try and convince her to change her mind but clearly he had failed and you tried to come up with words that could bring him comfort. “does she not see how foolish this is? to let those people walk amongst us? those those…” he pulls his head away to look at you as he struggles to speak, his face clearly tormented and painful. “they are undeserving. unworthy. they are mongrels and monsters. born out of wedlock believing themselves to be fit for a role they were not made for,”
“are you talking about them or are you talking about yourself?”
he gulps at your words and his eyes well up, “what claim do i have if they claim a dragon? i do not have the hair, the skin, i am a fraud and everyone knows it. I am mere moments away from being stripped of everything i have left.” his head falls onto your chest as his chest heaves up and down with heavy breaths. “i cannot imagine how you feel. the shame you must feel walking down the halls and people staring at you, married to a bastard.”
You grip his face and make him look at you. Hes shocked to see the furry and angry on your face. “i will hear no more of this. you are jacaerys targaryen son of queen rhaenyra taragryen. heir to the iron throne nobody will contest that not. don’t you dare insinuate i am insulted or shamed to be seen with you it is an honor. everyday i wake up blessed to know i married such an honorable and truthful man and i would have it no other way.”
at this point tears are pouring down his face as he shakes his head finding himself refusing to listen to your words. “you could not possibly mean such a thing.” he whines ever so slightly when you bring your lips to his face and kiss the tears off his face, closing his eyes and he refuses to look at you. “i mean it and more. there is no other better man than you. your heritage means nothing to me. should anybody contest that remember you are a targaryen. they shall pay for their contestation with fire and blood.”
he says nothing in return, simply laying his head on your chest while silent tears continue to run down his face. you did not wish to push him to speak, your hands find the back of his head and play with his hair ever so slightly.
“what if they do contest it?” you peer down at him but he continues to stare at the lit fire in your fire pit. “what if after my mother dies they argue and fight and usurp my throne right under me as they have done her? what if there is another war and more people get hurt what if you,,,” His words end up choked up in his throat as he shakes with sobs, you cant help but feel your own eyes begin to water. He’s scared. just a scared young man who doesn’t wish to lose anyone or anything else.
one of your hands soothe his back as you press a kiss to his forehead while your other one cups his face to wipe away his tears. you cannot say anything to console him, knowing this is an issue that runs deeper into his consciousness than you will ever be able to fix by your lonesome. So when you roll him off you he sits up and stares at you in horror as you begin to walk off. his mouth shakily opens to call after you to beg you to stay but his words die on his tongue and he can just let out a meek gasp.
When you arrive back into the room he has his head in his hands while he cries into them. He looks up at you when you place a leather bag next to and tries to catch his breath. His pupils bounce around your face as your hands grab his top and begin to pull it off of him. He allows you, making no move to stop you despite his confusion. “lay on your stomach.” He pauses sniffing as he folds his hands in his lap. When he doesn’t move your cup his face and press a light kiss against his furrowed brows.
He silently pulls away and rolls to lay on his back as you had asked. He has no clue what you’re doing and almost turns to ask you after theres been no movement or talking from you for a bit until he feels you straddle his back and your hands begin to run through his hair. He can smell the oil on your fingers as you delicately run them throughout his curls. He lets out a pleased hum as your nails scratch into his head.
he does not say anything simply allowing you to shower him in affections he normally does not allow you to. cooing at him and pecking all over his back and head. As you move down to massage his neck and back he finds himself overwhelmed with the display of affection and love you’re showering him with he has no clue what to do or say.
Hes even more so embarrassed when you flip him around and he’s hard as a rock. Hes not even feeling sexual in that moment but he’s body is flighting against him. He whines slightly and wishes he could explain himself but he cant. You dont seem to mind. simply dripping more oil onto his skin and working your hands to ease his tension.
He closes his eyes and tries to will it away while you continue to press kisses onto his chest and stomach but if anything it only gets worse at your pure display of love. He hopes he is not ruining this just as he ruins everything. He has never felt so loved in his life he has never felt so at peace since before the war he wants to live in this feeling forever.
His eyes shoot open when you tug his pants down his legs leaving him completely bare and he looks at you alarmed. You say nothing however simply eyeing him as you kiss around his thighs and massage the parts your lips are not. He is breathless as he watches you. When you suddenly stop your movements and look at him he does not know what to do. “i,, shouldn’t i,,, you should,,” The look you have on your face as him stumbling and stuttering over his words. He’s never like this. He would never allow you to do this to him normally. He would insist he get you off first or even outright forbid you to even do something like this more content with pleasing you.
Yet he cant help but be greedy today, the self centered part of him wins and he finds himself nodding to you. He will regret this later he knows he will but when you peck light kissing along his throbbing cock he throws his head back with a moan without a care in the world. His hands grip at the sheets under him when you tongue at his slit slurping up some of his precum before wrapping your lips fully around him.
He understands why some men who are less honorable as he seek out these pleasures often and he almost wishes he allowed you do to this more often. When your hands come to cup and play with his balls his legs shake and he whimpers. He swears he’s going to rip the bedsheets the way he’s gripping at them. His face burns slightly in humiliation and more so in pleasure. sweat drips down the sides of his forehead into his newly oiled hair as he hips uncontrollable thrust up into your mouth where he spews out and apology but you simply hum around him sending another shiver up his spine.
his whole body is shaking with pleasure. He had already been sensitive and relaxed from your overwhelming intimacy he can barely control himself now. he finds himself chanting your name mixed and mumbled with i love you’s. He releases unexpectedly after some louder groans and moans and his eyes well up again as he watches you swallow it down. “im sorry im sorry.” even when he does allow you to do this he never lets himself release in your mouth fearing it may be too much for you and usually just allows himself to spend on your chest.
You climb up to him and press a loving kiss against his lips. He does not mind he can taste himself on your lips as he presses his lips firmly back against yours. The action speaking louder than any words could. He insist he should do something for you in return but the way his eyes droop and struggle to stay open you know he is mere moments from falling asleep. You smile at him and peck his cheek as you shake your head at him. He tries to argue with falters under your comforting hands and sweet nothings into his ear.
He settles with a faint smile on his face the first one you’ve seen on him in many moons. when you rub your hands on his chest he falls asleep at the comfort but not being letting another i love you slip through his lips. His smile grows when he hears you return it before drifting off to sleep where he knows he’ll meet you there too
Jacaerys Velaryon x wife!reader - House of the Dragon
Summary: It starts as something almost laughable: a dragon who prefers his rider’s wife to his rider. But when a dragon decides something is his to guard, the world learns to step carefully around what he has chosen.
Warnings: 16+ morning after, brief nudity, possessive/protective Jace, pregnancy, control/protection, scary dragon and his rider who are both secretly softies, innuendo, non-graphic childbirth, huge time jumps
A/N: This got a lil out of hand, I admit. It was meant to be a short blurb, and yet here we are. Ik people wanted smut, so I added some morning after here, and I plan to write another smut-heavy fic next so dw.
MASTERLIST - REQUESTS (open) - WC: 4.7k
The storm had burned itself out sometime before dawn.
Now all that remained was the steady drip of rain from Dragonstone's black stone walls and the distant crash of waves below the cliffs. Pale morning light slipped through the narrow windows in soft ribbons, washing the chamber in silver.
You wake slowly.
Not necessarily because you're rested, but because you're warm. Far warmer than you ought to be beneath a blanket that had long since been kicked to the foot of the bed.
Jace is wrapped around you as though sometime during the night he'd decided that simply sleeping beside you wasn't close enough. One arm is draped securely across your waist, his face buried against the back of your shoulder, his breathing slow and even. His dark curls are a complete mess, and one bare leg has somehow become tangled with yours beneath the sheets.
You smile to yourself.
"You'll complain about your shoulder later," you murmur.
A sleepy sound, somewhere between a hum and a groan, vibrates against your skin.
"I'll survive." His voice is thick with sleep and his grip tightens just enough to pull you impossibly closer. There's something almost boyish about the way he says it, as though it's a victory in itself.
You turn carefully within the circle of his arms until you're facing him. The movement earns another sleepy complaint, though he makes no effort to let go.
Up close, you can still see the faint flush lingering across his cheeks from the warmth of the room. A thin scratch is visible beneath his collarbone, your own fault no doubt.
You remeber is so clearly, how the rain had battered against the windows, how the candles had guttered low, how his forehead was resting against yours while the storm rolled over Dragonstone. But inside your bed chamber, you'd barely noticed.
"You look terribly pleased with yourself," you say.
One eye opens. "Well, I married you, didn't I?"
"Your point being?"
"It happens to be something I am very pleased about." He studies you for a long moment. "I was thinking..." He continues, thumb brushing lazily over your bare waist. "That I should arrange for more storms."
"Oh?"
"They appear to encourage you to stay in bed."
Outside, somewhere beyond the window, comes the deep, familiar rumble of a dragon.
Jace sighs dramatically without lifting his head. "He's awake."
He presses a kiss to your forehead before finally, reluctantly, releasing you. "If Vermax has flown all the way here simply to interrupt my morning," he declares, "I shall have to remind him who hatched him."
You grin as you reach for the discarded shift lying somewhere beside the bed.
By the time you're both dressed the castle has begun to wake around you.
You trail a step behind Jace, fingers loosely hooked around his sleeve more out of habit than necessity. To be honest, it is a habit you've only recently allowed yourself.
When you first arrived as his wife, you had been painfully conscious of every eye that followed you through the castle.
The princess, the prince's bride. Too young, some had whispered when they thought you were out of earshot. Too sheltered or too soft for Dragonstone.
You had smiled through every greeting, learned every name you could remember, and prayed no one noticed how often you got lost in the twisting corridors of black stone.
Jace had noticed.
Three days after your wedding, he'd quietly taken your hand before supper and walked every hallway, pointing out hidden staircases, quicker routes, which doors stuck in damp weather and which windows gave the best view of Blackwater Bay.
"I cannot believe you've spent an entire afternoon making sure I know my way around the castle." You'd said that evening in your chambers.
"Why can't you believe it?"
"You drew me a map."
"It was an excellent map."
"It had little dragons."
"So you wouldn't get bored."
You laugh. "You named one after Lord Celtigar."
"That one looked particularly grumpy." He grins, a quick flash of satisfaction that softens his usually princely composure, and reaches for your hand.
In your mind, the heir to the Iron Throne ought to be careful, composed, forever aware of watching eyes. But Jace rarely seems to remember, or perhaps he simply doesn't care.
A pair of servants step into the corridor ahead.
The moment they see the two of you, they bow hurriedly. "My prince. Princess."
You smile in greeting, Jace nods once, polite but distracted.
Only after they've passed do you realize he never let go of your hand.
Not even for a moment.
"You know," you tease quietly, "there are people who might think you're terribly devoted."
"They'd be right." He looks at you then with a familiar softness, so unguarded it almost steals your breath.
His thumb brushes absentmindedly across your knuckles. "And I'm not inclined to stop simply because people are looking."
Before you can answer, a deep, resonant rumble rolls across the courtyard outside.
Jace exhales through his nose.
"There he is."
You cross toward one of the narrow windows overlooking the inner yard. Far below, Vermax has landed.
The young dragon stands with his wings half-folded, emerald scales still glistening from the night's rain. A pair of dragonkeepers are speaking to him from what they clearly believe is a safe distance.
Vermax is paying them absolutely no attention. Instead, his great head is tilted upward.
Toward this very window.
You laugh. "I think he's looking for you Jace."
Jace joins you at the window. "No."
He follows the dragon's gaze for a moment before the corners of his mouth twitch. "I think," he says with theatrical resignation, "he's looking for you."
As though to prove his point, Vermax lets out another low, expectant chirr, quieter than his earlier call.
You blink. "Surely not."
Down in the courtyard, Vermax chirrs again.
It becomes impossible to deny by the end of the week. Vermax has decided you belong to him.
"No," Jace says flatly one afternoon, watching the dragon nudge your shoulder with surprising delicacy. "Absolutely not."
You laugh, scratching beneath the smooth ridge of emerald scales where you've discovered he likes it best. "What has he done now?"
"He is stealing my wife."
As if personally offended by the accusation, Vermax lowers his head another inch until the broad curve of his snout is pressed insistently against your side.
Jace stares. "You see?"
"He wants attention."
"I gave him an entire sheep this morning."
You can't help the laugh that escapes you, and it echoes across the training yard, bright enough that even a pair of dragonkeepers glance over with amused smiles.
You and Jace turn to go back inside, but only make it perhaps ten paces before heavy footsteps thud softly behind you.
The dragon has stood and started following.
"Vermax."
He stops, tilting his head.
"You can't come into the castle."
It doesn't stop there.
If you choose to read beneath the old weirwood overlooking the sea, Vermax appears within the hour.
If you wander the beach collecting shells after supper, a shadow passes lazily overhead before circling back toward shore. When you look up, the dragon is gliding against the afternoon sky.
The dragon dips lower, just enough that the rush of displaced air sends your skirts fluttering.
You laugh and wave. High above, Vermax answers with a delighted trill.
One morning you step into the gardens alone, intending only to cut fresh lavender for your chambers. You have barely even filled half the basket when a familiar shadow rolls across the flowers.
Then comes the gentle, unmistakable whuff of warm dragon breath.
You don't even look up.
"Good morning, Vermax." The dragon answers with a contented rumble.
He settles himself just beyond the garden wall, folding his forelegs neatly beneath him.
And there he remains.
When Jace finds you nearly an hour later, basket overflowing with lavender, he stops dead.
"You've got to be joking."
"What?"
He points.
Vermax, his great head rests on crossed forelegs, one eye lazily cracked open just enough to keep you in sight.
You walk over, unable to resist stroking the smooth scales along Vermax's jaw.
Jace follows, and you shake your head, laughing, and slip your free hand into his. Immediately, Vermax opens both eyes.
He watches the joined hands for a long, silent moment. Then, with another deep, satisfied rumble, he closes them again.
A couple weeks later, Dragonstone is hosting a small gathering of sworn lords from the Crownlands. Nothing particularly grand, just an awful lot of petitions, trade disputes, and endless discussions that leave Jace rubbing his temples by supper.
You escape the hall as politely as you can.
"I shall only be a moment," you promise him.
His hand lingers around yours before he lets go. "I know."
"You'll survive without me, Jace, I promise."
The sea air is cooler outside. Rain still clings to the black stone, leaving everything smelling of salt and earth. You breathe deeply, grateful for the quiet after hours of smiling at strangers.
You don't notice the shadow until it passes overhead.
A heartbeat later, Vermax lands beyond the outer wall with enough force to make loose gravel dance across the ground.
"You again?" you laugh.
His answer is a soft chirr as he lowers his head, inviting the familiar scratch beneath his jaw.
You indulge him. "You know," you murmur, "your rider insists you're abandoning him."
You continue scratching him anyway.
The interruption comes quietly. "My princess."
You turn. One of the visiting lords, a pleasant enough man whose name escapes you, has stepped into the courtyard. He offers a courteous bow.
"I hoped I might thank you for your kindness at supper."
"You are very kind, my lord."
He smiles. "I confess Dragonstone is rather less… welcoming than I imagined."
You glance at the dragon. "I imagine it has nothing to do with the fire-breathing beats circling at all times."
The lord laughs and takes a step closer.
Vermax's head lifts. The movement is slow enough that, for a moment, no one notices. Until the rumbling begins. It vibrates through the stone beneath your feet and the lord stops mid-sentence.
His smile falters.
Vermax does not bare his teeth, he does not spread his wings, he simply fixes the man with one unblinking emerald eye.
The rumble deepens.
"My lady," the lord corrects takes an instinctive step backward.
The sound stops.
You blink.
"…That was odd."
The lord laughs a little too loudly. "I believe… I shall return inside."
You think little of it.
Until it happens again, and again, and again. Not only with strangers, but with servants and guards. Even dragonkeepers he has known since hatching.
If someone approaches you too quickly, Vermax appears.
If voices grow heated nearby, he materialises as though summoned by instinct alone. He has become a living wall of green scales between you and the rest of the world.
A fortnight passes.
The castle settles into its familiar rhythm, though Vermax never quite returns to his old habits.
If anything, he grows bolder.
By now, even the servants have stopped remarking upon it.
"Your shadow awaits you, Princess," one maid says one morning with a knowing smile.
You peer from the window. Sure enough, a pair of emerald eyes are already fixed expectantly on the tower.
You laugh. "I do believe I've been adopted."
That afternoon, the weather is fair.
Jace has escaped the council chambers looking thoroughly exhausted, finding you exactly where he expected, beneath the old windswept tree overlooking the cliffs, a book forgotten in your lap while Vermax dozes nearby.
Or appears to.
His eyes are closed.
One wing lies stretched lazily across the grass, shimmering green beneath the sun.
Jace watches while walking towards you, finally bending to kiss the top of your head. Then, without thinking, he reaches a hand toward you.
Vermax's eyes snap open.
The dragon rises in one smooth motion, slipping between you and Jace with astonishing precision. His great neck curves across the narrow space, not striking, not threatening, but blocking.
Jace freezes.
For one suspended heartbeat, neither moves.
The dragon's head turns slightly, one brilliant green eye fixed on his rider, Jace stares back.
"...Vermax."
The dragon lets out a low sound, as though asking something only he understands. Then, just as suddenly, he steps aside.
You blink. "What on earth was that?"
Jace doesn't answer, he is still looking at Vermax.
"I've never..." he murmurs.
"What?"
"He has never stood between us."
By evening, Jace has sought out the dragonkeepers; he wants an explanation.
The oldest among them is already waiting when Jace reaches the caverns.
He bows deeply.
"My prince."
"You've noticed." It is not a question.
The old man is silent for a long moment. "...Yes."
"Then tell me."
Another pause.
"There are tales." The dragonkeeper folds weathered hands before him. "And the tales are all I have."
Jace says nothing, but his jaw tightens.
The old man continues carefully. "Dragons know certain things before men do, sometimes."
"What things?"
"Danger." Jace nods once. "Weather." Another nod. "And..." The man hesitates. "Life."
Jace blinks. "...What do you mean?"
"There are old records. Rare ones. A dragon becoming unusually protective of a rider's wife. Of a queen. Of a princess."
"Protective?"
"They guard." The dragonkeeper's gaze drifts toward the mouth of the cavern, where Vermax sleeps beyond the fading light.
Jace remembers every strange moment of the past weeks and his heartbeat quickens.
"No."
"It is only a possibility."
"No."
"Has the princess been unwell?"
"...No."
"Has she been unusually tired?"
Jace opens his mouth. Closes it again.
"And..." the dragonkeeper says gently, "when did the dragon's behavior begin?"
Jace's mind races backwards until he finally remembers the storm. How Vermax had refused to leave the castle, had hovered outside their chambers, nudging him toward the tower when he'd intended to return to his studies.
He'd laughed. "Apparently, he has plans for us."
Three months, almost exactly.
The dragonkeeper watches the realisation settle over his prince's face. Quietly, he says, "I believe... it may be time to send for the maester."
Jace finds you in your solar not five minutes later. You look up from the embroidery in your lap, smiling the moment he steps through the door, but the smile falters almost immediately.
"Jace?"
His hair is windblown from crossing the castle at nearly a run, his expression unreadable in a way you've never quite seen before. He closes the door behind him without a word and simply looks at you, searching your face as though expecting to find something different.
"What is it?"
He crosses the room in three long strides and kneels before your chair, taking both your hands in his. "Have you felt unwell?"
You blink. "...No."
"Not at all?"
"A little tired, perhaps, but you've been working me through every feast and council dinner on Dragonstone." You smile faintly. "I assumed being a princess was simply quite exhausting."
His thumb traces absent circles across your knuckles. "And nothing else?"
"I've slept later than usual."
"You've always liked sleeping late."
You grin, leaning forward to whisper, "I do when my husband keeps me awake half the night."
The corner of his mouth twitches despite himself, though the smile never quite reaches his eyes. "When was your last moon's blood?"
You stare at him. "What?"
He doesn't repeat himself, and slowly, your own amusement fades. You set the embroidery aside. "I..." You pause, thinking. "I don't know."
"You don't know?"
"I've never had reason to count the days so carefully, Jace."
Silence settles between you. You begin counting backwards in your head, tracing feasts, journeys, the passing weeks. Your brows knit together. "A couple of weeks, maybe," you murmur. "I'm not sure."
His expression answers before he speaks. "The dragonkeepers believe Vermax sensed it."
You let out a disbelieving laugh. "Jace."
"They've seen it before."
"Surely they haven't."
"They swear they have."
You shake your head, trying to make sense of it. "So... because Vermax has decided to follow me everywhere..."
"And because he stood between us."
"...he thinks I'm carrying a child?"
"Yes."
You both fall quiet.
"Oh."
It is the only word you can manage, and Jace squeezes your hands.
"I've sent for the maester."
"You've... already?"
"He'll be here shortly."
The maester, when he finally arrives, is kind and discreet, far too accustomed to royal nerves to comment on the tension hanging in the room. He asks a handful of careful questions, his expression growing steadily more thoughtful with each answer.
When he rises from his examination, he folds his hands inside his sleeves and smiles.
"My prince."
Jace has been standing by the window the entire time.
"So?"
The old man inclines his head. "My congratulations."
The room falls completely still. You look at Jace. He looks at you. Neither of you speaks.
The maester continues, almost gently. "If my calculations are correct, Her Grace is nearing the end of her third month."
He leaves you with instructions about rest, diet, and avoiding undue strain, but you hear almost none of it, too focused on the way the room seems to have shrunk around you.
The door clicks shut.
Then Jace crosses the room so quickly that you barely have time to stand before his arms are around you. He buries his face against your hair, holding you so tightly it almost hurts.
You laugh through the tears threatening your eyes.
"I think..." Your voice catches. "I think we're going to have a baby."
He nods once against your shoulder, voice barely a whisper. "I know."
Jace's spiral into overprotectiveness begins with the reasonable things.
"No more riding."
You open your mouth to argue, but are stopped before any sound escapes by a single raised eyebrow.
The maester, entirely unhelpfully, agrees with him.
Then come the stairs.
"If no one is with you."
"Jace."
"They're uneven."
"They have been uneven for a hundred years."
He insists on taking your arm every time you descend them after that.
By the time your gowns no longer sit quite as they used to, he has become impossible.
Servants carry anything heavier than a book. Meals appear in your chambers if the Great Hall is too crowded. Councils are moved rather than asking you to cross the castle, and if you so much as mention feeling tired, Jace is already leading you back toward your rooms before you've finished the sentence.
"You know women have been having children since the beginning of time?"
"I am aware, yes."
"They don't all require an escort to the library."
"I don't care, because you will have one.
Once, you disappear for nearly an hour.
Jace finds you asleep in the late afternoon sun, curled against the warm curve of Vermax's foreleg with a book lying open across your lap.
The dragon is awake. His head rests protectively around you, just close enough to shelter you from the wind without touching.
At Jace's approach, one emerald eye opens. For a long moment, dragon and rider simply look at one another. Then Vermax lowers his head again.
You stir at the sound of footsteps, blinking sleepily up at your husband.
"There you are."
"I've been looking everywhere."
"I was comfortable."
"I can see that."
By the eighth month, you start to begrudingly appreciate Jace's over-the-top efforts.
"I cannot reach my boots."
Jace looks up from the letter he'd been pretending to read. "You reached them yesterday."
"I was smaller yesterday."
He watches you glare down at the impossible curve of your stomach as though sheer determination might convince it to move. After another unsuccessful attempt, you huff dramatically and fold your arms.
"This child is already causing problems."
"Our child," Jace corrects.
"Our child," you sigh, "has stolen my feet."
A smile threatens at the corners of his mouth. With the patience of a man who has accepted this as his fate, he sets the letter aside and kneels in front of you.
"Oh, don't you dare."
"You said you couldn't reach."
"I did not ask you to-"
"You were about to."
He lifts one foot gently onto his knee and makes quick work of the laces.
"Jace, you don't have to do everything you know."
"I know."
"So why do you?"
He finishes tying the second boot before looking up at you. "Because I like taking care of my wife."
A number of weeks later the castle wakes before dawn to the sound of a dragon.
Not roaring; pacing.
The heavy scrape of claws against stone echoes through the courtyard, followed by a low, restless rumble that seems to vibrate through the walls of Dragonstone itself.
You stir beneath the blankets, still half asleep. "...He's at it again."
Beside you, Jace groans into his pillow. "If he has frightened another stableboy, I swear on all that is holy-"
Another rumble.
Closer this time. Longer, almost a whine in nature.
Jace sits up. "...That's odd."
For the past several months Vermax has scarcely left the courtyard beneath your chambers, but he has always been quiet. Content simply to stand and watch.
The windows rattle faintly as his tail sweeps across the stone.
Jace is already pulling on a tunic. "I'll see what's wrong."
You nod, pushing yourself upright with considerably more effort than dignity. He smiles over his shoulder as he ducks out of the room, but it doesn't quite reach his eyes.
The courtyard is in chaos.
Dragonkeepers stand well back from Vermax, speaking to him in soothing High Valyrian that goes utterly ignored. The dragon paces in tight circles, wings half-spread, head swinging constantly toward the tower above.
One keeper catches sight of Jace.
"My prince."
"What happened?"
"We don't know."
Vermax notices his rider. Instead of calming, the dragon lets out another deep, agitated rumble and immediately turns toward the tower again, toward your chambers. Then, he stamps a forefoot. Hard enough that dust shakes from the walls.
Up in the tower, you're sitting and waiting for Jace when pain tightens unexpectedly across your abdomen.
You stop halfway across the chamber, one hand finding the edge of the table. "...Hm."
The feeling passes as quickly as it came.
Outside, Vermax lets out the loudest cry you've ever heard him make. It rolls across the cliffs and back again.
You freeze before calling out. "...Jace?"
He is already taking the stairs two at a time. He bursts through the chamber doors moments later, slightly out of breath.
Before he can speak, another wave rolls through you. Your hand flies instinctively to your stomach.
Jace's face drains of colour. "What is it?"
"I..." You breathe carefully. "I think..."
Another pause. Then, despite yourself, you laugh. "I think Vermax has solved another mystery."
For one heartbeat Jace simply stares.
Then his eyes widen.
"No."
"I think so."
As if the universe itself objects to his denial, another wave steals your breath. You grip the bedpost but Jace is at your side before you can blink, one arm already around your waist.
"The maester."
His voice comes out far calmer than his expression.
"Someone fetch the maester!"
Outside, Vermax finally stops pacing.
He lowers himself heavily onto the black stone directly beneath your windows, refusing every attempt by the dragonkeepers to coax him away.
His head remains lifted toward the tower.
After hours of pain and effort the world slowly comes back into focus in pieces.
Sound first; soft voices, the distant rush of the sea, the occasional crackle of the hearth. Then warmth pressed against your side. You blink against the haze of exhaustion and find yourself surrounded by dim candlelight and movement that feels almost too gentle for how loud everything had just been.
Jace is here.
He’s sitting half on the edge of the bed, hair dishevelled, sleeves rolled up wrong, a smear of something dark on his cuff that you vaguely decide not to think about too hard. His eyes are fixed on you with a kind of stunned intensity, as if he’s afraid that if he looks away for even a second, this will all vanish.
“You’re shaking,” you murmur, though your own voice barely holds together.
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
A beat of silence passes between you before he exhales and finally lets himself lean forward, pressing a careful kiss against your forehead.
“And him?” he asks, like he’s been holding the question in his teeth for hours.
You don’t even need to answer. The little bundle in your arms shifts slightly, a tiny sound breaking through the quiet and Jace goes utterly still. His gaze drops to the child as though he’s afraid it might disappear if he stares too hard.
“He's beautiful,” he says finally.
You adjust the blanket slightly, and the baby nestles closer, face scrunching briefly before settling again. Jace makes a sound that is halfway between a laugh and something dangerously close to breaking.
“I don’t-” he starts, then stops, swallowing. “I didn’t think it would feel like this.”
“You thought it would feel like what?”
He doesn’t answer immediately. His hand hovers near the bundle, stops short, then retreats again like he’s not sure he’s allowed.
“Louder,” he admits.
You huff a weak laugh. “I'm not sure it'll stay this quiet, so we should probably try to enjoy it while it lasts.”
He finally looks at you again, and there’s something undone in his expression that you’ve never seen before. “I need to see him,” he says.
You tilt your head slightly. “You’ve been staring at him for an hour.”
“Alright, I need to hold him.”
You carefully shift the baby into his arms. It’s awkward at first, Jace holding himself too rigid, like he’s afraid of doing it wrong, like one wrong breath might undo everything, but then the child settles against him and something in his shoulders breaks open.
He exhales, slow and unsteady. There’s a long silence where he doesn’t say anything at all.
Jace looks down again, thumb brushing so lightly over the baby’s cheek it’s almost not there. “He looks…” He pauses, helpless. “He looks like he knows things already.”
“That’s probably just you projecting.”
Outside the window, a deep sound rolls through the cliffs. Jace’s head lifts instantly.
“Oh.”
Jace carefully adjusts his grip on the baby, like he’s handling something far more fragile than steel and fire could ever be.
“I should-” he starts.
You raise an eyebrow. “You should what?”
He’s already standing. “I should show him.”
You blink at him. “Jace.”
But he’s not really listening anymore. Not in the way he used to, at least. This is something else, instinctive and almost urgent.
“Jace, it’s freezing outside.”
“I’ll be quick.”
So you watch him wrap a cloak around himself and the baby like it’s the most natural thing in the world, then walk out of the room.
By the time he reaches the courtyard, Vermax is already there.
The dragon is enormous against the grey morning sky, wings folded, tail curled tightly around the stone like he’s been rooted there for hours. When he sees Jace, he doesn’t move at first.
Then Jace steps into the open.
Vermax’s head lowers immediately.
Jace stops a few paces away, breathing uneven, then lifts the bundle higher against his chest.
“This is my son.”
Vermax steps forward, so carefully. The ground still trembles slightly beneath the weight of him, but he is impossibly gentle as he lowers his head until he’s level with Jace’s arms. One massive eye focuses on the tiny face within the blanket.
For a long moment, he does nothing.
Then he exhales. Warm air, slow and careful, brushes over the child like a blessing.
The baby stirs, and Vermax freezes instantly.
Jace laughs under his breath, disbelieving and wrecked all at once. “It’s alright,” he murmurs. “He’s yours too, apparently.”
The dragon makes a soft, almost questioning sound, then lowers himself further until his forehead rests against the stone directly in front of them, as if offering something wordless and absolute.
Jace finally looks up at him properly, smiling.
“Say hello,” he whispers.
Vermax answers with a quiet, reverent rumble that rolls out across Dragonstone.
this was too cute, idk where the idea came from but i needed some vermax jace fluff
The duties of the future heir weigh heavy on Jace’s shoulders.
The desperation to be the perfect prince, to make up for what the realm considers his deficiencies, to be the steady pillar that ought to follow his mother’s rule, all act as a constant reminder to Jace of his precarious position in life.
Jacaerys sometimes wonders if drowning would feel all too different from the heaviness he feels in his chest, the lack of air that makes him feel trapped.
The tomes of Valyrian histories, written in his mother tongue litter the wooden table before him.
The candles burns low, forcing the young prince to squint, eyes growing blurry as he fights against the heavy hold of sleep.
The words before him blur together, stories of Aegon’s conquest swimming in his mind.
The library is quiet, save for the sound of the wind, the stained glass squeaking from the strain of keeping the cold out.
Jace is close to nodding off again, soft footsteps against the cobblestone rousing him from sleep.
The dark cloak weighs heavy against your frame, the candle in your hand lighting the way only a few steps ahead.
But you don’t need to see clearly to find Jace, having danced through this sequence many times before.
The door creaks under the pressure of your palm, as you push into the library.
Jace’s head lifts from his palm, eyes finding your figure instantly.
“You are awake.” He notes, voice tired, heavy with a pain you’re desperate to ease.
“As are you.” You smile kindly, nearing the table he’s spread his books over. “Yet again.”
Jace’s lips twitch, recognising the familiar tone of judgement you inherited from your mother.
“I have to study.” He says, fighting back a yawn.
Your laugh echoes softly through the room, bouncing off the walls until it cements itself in Jace’s memory.
“You have done enough studying for tonight, no?”
You reach for him when you’re near enough to touch, fingers threading through his dark curls, as he leans into your touch.
“There is no such thing as enough studying.” His voice is soft as he looks up at you, brown eyes painted almost black in the dim light.
“Spoken like a true prince.” You smile down at him, leaning against the edge of the wooden table. “What are you reading about tonight?”
You look back at the old book, eyes scanning over High Valyrian text.
“Aegon’s conquest.” Jace says, resting his head over the cloak, against your stomach.
“Ah.” Your tongue clicks. “And what have you learnt?”
He sighs.
“That my Valyrian is not as good as I had hoped.”
The giggle that rips from your throat rings loud and true in the quiet space and Jace cannot help the satisfaction that fills his chest at the sound.
“That simply cannot be true.” Your voice deepens as your mother tongue slips from your mouth. “You speak it so fluently.”
“I know enough to converse with you, sweet girl.” He says, looking up at you again.
“That is more than enough for me, my prince.” Your hand slips down to his neck, pulling his head back as you lower your own face, lips meeting his softly.
Jace sighs against your lips, hands slipping through the opening of your cloak and finding their rightful place over the dips of your waist.
It takes you longer than you’d anticipated to pull back, the taste of him intoxicating.
Jace barely gives you time to recover from the kiss, before he’s pulling you down, sitting you atop his lap.
Your laughter is muffled by his hair as he buries his face into the crook of your throat, nose brushing against the soft skin.
“We ought to go to bed.” You muse as your fingers slip into his hair, scratching his scalp.
“I need to read.”
“You are half asleep.” You say, pulling at his hair softly.
Jace just hums against your skin.
“Still need to read.”
Your annoyed breath tangles in his hair, his long fingers slipping down to your covered thigh, gripping you through the light fabric of your nightgown.
“You can read on the morrow, when there is light and you are not fighting sleep on every page.”
He doesn’t answer.
You try to fight the shudder the passes through you when his lips move against the sensitive skin of your throat, the action performed half-consciously by the dark haired prince.
“You smell wonderful.” His voice is rough to your ears, lips kissing up the column of your throat.
“Yes, I bathe. Unlike some people.” He huffs a laugh against you, hand slipping from your back up your spine until it tangles in your hair.
“I bathe.” He protests weakly.
“Once a moon, mayhaps.”
You swallow the sound that tries to leave your lips when he tugs at your hair lightly.
You pull back from him and try not to laugh at his whiny sound of protest.
“Come to bed.” Your palm rests against his pale cheek, thumb stroking the alabaster skin.
“Soon.” He leans into your touch without thought.
“Now.” You try to make your voice stern, exhaustion fighting with your resolve.
Jace looks down at his books, ready to protest again.
You lean down, lips brushing his softly first before kissing him properly.
He hums softly against your lips, as both your hands caress his face.
Jace’s grip on you tightens, pulling you closer until your chests are pressed tightly against one another, breathing each other’s air.
His hand in your hair slips down to your neck, angling your head so he can kiss you more comfortably, tongue lapping at your lips until your mouth parts, inviting him in.
His tongue is hot in your mouth, the dragon blood that courses through his veins evident in every part of him.
You sigh against his mouth, lips moving in tandem with his until the threat of suffocation grows too serious and you’re forced to part.
His breath is hot against your skin, the rapid rise and fall of his chest matching your own.
“Come back with me.” High Valyrian slips through your lips again. “Come to bed, my love.”
Jace looks down at his books and looks back up at your pleading gaze.
“One more kiss.” He all but whispers to you, the language heavy and ancient against his tongue. “One more kiss and I’ll come.”
You sigh in mock-exasperation and cannot help the love that spreads beneath your ribs when he smiles, eyes creasing at the action.
“One more.” You warn and Jace nods before covering your lips with his, hand slipping into your hair again.
His mouth is hot and heavy against yours, kiss filled with a passion Jace thought his exhaustion had dulled within him.
Your hands grip his face tighter, pulling him closer until all he can feel and smell and see is you, you, you.
His tongue laps at yours again, teeth scraping against the softness of your lips.
You shudder under his touch, fingers slipping into his hair to pull softly at the curls.
You swallow the quiet moan that falls from Jace’s mouth at the action, noses bumping against one another.
The stubble that grows over his jaw grazes the pads of your fingers, tickling the skin there when your grip on his face tightens.
You hadn’t realised just how much you missed the feeling of his skin against yours, as Jace’s duties doubled and responsibilities began weighing heavier.
His hand tightens over your thigh, pulling you so close, you can feel his heart beat in tandem with yours.
“I have missed you.” His voice is soft and deep, the words falling from his mouth between the kisses he peppers against the skin of your face.
“And I, you.” He hums against you, lips closing over your jaw, sucking at the skin there.
“You are right.” He says, placing a kiss to the edge of your mouth. “We ought to go to bed.”
You smile down at him, big brown eyes looking up at you.
Jace pays little mind to the books scattered across the wooden table as he blows out the candle, hand holding tightly onto yours.
The heavy doors of the library close behind him as you lead him out into the familiar halls of Dragonstone.
The walk to your chambers is short and when the doors open, the dimly lit candles drenching you in an elysian light, Jace feels, for once, free of every responsibility, his only purpose in life — keeping you content and by his side.
♡₊˚ 🦢・₊✧
yes, i did google the proper use of the em dash, so what 🤨
“I swear, Jacaerys Velaryon, if you die, I’ll never forgive you.”
The words came out broken, sharper than the trembling in her voice would have liked, but she did not care. She stood in the threshold of the chambers, one hand pressed to the frame as if it were the only thing keeping her upright, the other curled protectively over the small bundle in her arms.
Lucerys Velaryon II slept against her chest, his tiny face soft and innocent and untouched by the war that threatened to swallow them whole. His fingers twitched in his blanket as if even in sleep he knew something was wrong.
Jacaerys had one arm wrapped around their son, cradling him carefully, reverently, like he was holding the most fragile thing in the world. His jaw was tight.
His eyes, usually so full of light when they looked at her, were clouded now with the heaviness of duty. He looked at the child, then at her, and something in his face almost cracked.
“Do not speak like that,” he said quietly.
Her laugh was bitter and wet. “Then do not leave me.”The silence that followed was cruel.
He lowered his gaze to Lucerys, brushing the back of one knuckle over the baby’s cheek. The child made the smallest sound, a sleepy sigh, and Jacaerys shut his eyes for a moment as though he had to gather every last piece of himself before he could speak again.
“I have to go.”
“No,” she whispered, stepping toward him. “No, you do not. You can stay. You can send another. Let someone else ride to the Gullet. Let someone else bleed for this war.”
His mouth tightened, but he did not answer at once. He only looked at her, and in that look was all the sorrow in the world.
“If I do not go,” he said, voice rough, “many more will die.”
“And if you do go?” she snapped, tears burning hot in her eyes. “What then? What am I supposed to do if you do not come back?”
For the first time, he faltered. The room seemed to still around them, the air thick with unspoken fear. Outside, the castle rumbled faintly with distant footsteps and hurried voices, the life of Dragonstone carrying on as if the world had not already begun to break.
Jacaerys looked down at their son again, and when he spoke, his voice had gone softer than before. “You are not alone.”
“That is not the same as having you here.”
His throat worked. He shifted Lucerys carefully in his arms, as if memorizing the weight of him. Then he lifted his eyes to hers.
“Look at me.”
She did not want to. She wanted to turn away, to harden herself before the hurt came, but she looked. Jacaerys stepped closer until he stood just before her, the baby still nestled between them like a fragile promise. With the hand not holding their son, he touched her cheek, his thumb brushing away a tear she had not realized had fallen.
“If I could stay,” he said, each word measured, “I would.” Her lips parted, but no sound came.
He leaned forward then, resting his forehead briefly against hers. It was a gesture so small it nearly destroyed her. So intimate. So full of love and grief that it hurt to breathe.
“Take care of him,” he murmured. “Tell him of me. Tell him I loved him before I ever saw his face.”
She gave a broken nod, though it felt like the most impossible thing in the world to promise.
Then Jacaerys kissed Lucerys’ brow and handed him back into her arms. The moment the child was in her grasp, she held him tighter than before, as if she could shield him from every monster in the realm by sheer force of love alone.
She looked up just in time to see Jacaerys step backward, already reaching for the weight of his cloak, already preparing to become the prince the realm demanded.
Her voice shattered as she called after him.
“Jacaerys.”
He turned.
For one terrible moment, neither of them moved. The son in her arms, the war beyond the walls, the future they had been trying so desperately to hold together it all hung there between them, trembling.
And then she said it again, quieter this time, like a prayer and a threat both.
“Come back to me.” Something raw passed over his face. He nodded once.
“I will try.”
It was not enough. It would never be enough. But she clung to those two words anyway, because love in wartime was always made of scraps of promises that could not be trusted, of kisses stolen before dawn, of fingers laced together as if that alone could stop the world from taking what it wanted.
Jacaerys gave her one last look, one last aching, helpless look, before he turned and walked toward the door. And she stood there with their son in her arms, watching the love of her life disappear into the storm, while the words still rang in her ears like a curse.
☾︎✰❛❀ 𝐣𝐚𝐜𝐚𝐞𝐫𝐲𝐬 𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐚𝐫𝐲𝐨𝐧 𝐱 𝐟𝐞𝐦!𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐞𝐥𝐥!𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫 ❣︎⌫ Jacaerys did not want you, or the vow he was bound to for life. Yet when he makes a big mistake, and potentially loses you for good. He realises just how much you meant to him.
𝐈𝐧𝐜𝐥𝐮𝐝𝐞𝐬/𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 ✷ Bastardphobia, mentions of death and grief, kissing, marrage of convenience/ grumpy/sunshine trope, jace is down bad, flirty!reader, guilt and anxiety and happy ending;)
🪞 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐬: This is one of my first house of the dragon fics ever, so I truly hope it's not too bad. Jacaerys is one of my favourite characters in hotd after Alicent so I really wanted to get his characteristics and behaviour right. Also, I didn't like the way they showed his grief after Luke died, as if he just moved on after two or three days. But overall, I enjoyed writing this:)
Jacaerys was infatuated infuriated with you.
You—his betrothed, acted like you owned the castle as soon as you strutted in. Speaking with no formality and a sharpness in your tongue that only infuriated him further. And especially when you did not seem to care for his heritage, who he was. The heir to the iron throne. Yet you acted as if he didn't exist to you. As if he meant nothing to you.
A marriage pact with the martells was only one of convenience. You, a princess of dorne, he, the firstborn son of queen Rhaenyra. Yet, they were stuck in dragonstone, and needed support to match the strength of the green armies. His mother needed this arrangement more than the martells did, and you made that very clear by acting carelessly and so freely, like you were in your own home. By taunting him, sitting at the great council table with your legs on them, a coin in your fingertips and a smirk in your lips. He hated it, he hated especially how good you looked.
He hated being betrothed to you already.
Rhaenyra had told him martells were rather, open and modern people. They took part in adultery even after being married, especially with the consent of their own partner. He did not know how anyone could be okay with such acts. He did not know what to expect when he met you, but it certainly wasn't how you commented on his face, calling him one of a beauty. It was inappropriate, calling a prince by such bold remarks on the first meeting, yet you did not seem to care.
But what edged him to his limit was the day you called him a bastard.
Jacaerys had been worried, he couldn't find you anywhere. Not that he cared, he was just stressed you would create another ruckus. He looked around everywhere, the garden, the great council, the dining hall, your room, even his room, but you were nowhere to be found. His chest tightened, a restlessness growing in his stomach. It seemed he always felt that way without being with you for too long. Not because he missed you—of course, but because he wanted to ensure everything was going smoothly.
He was going around circles, head spinning with a feeling that made him uncomfortable. Where were you? did you flee the castle? or were so bored of him you went to the city to a brothel in search of another man to keep you company. Anger and jealousy filled in his chest at the mere thought of that.
Jacaerys did not seem where he was going, many thoughts inside his head, before he harshly opened a door to the library. And to his surprise, there you were, a book in your hand. ‘Adventures of Aegon the conqueror’, he could read the name of the book by how you were holding it. He felt he could breathe again. By the loud sound of the door opening your head flitted towards him. Your usual smirk growing up your lips. Something that made his heart flutter in a way he didn't want it to. He clenched his jaw, holding his fists in a tight ball.
“Where have you been?” he asks, desperate tone in his voice.
“Ah, Prince Jacaerys.” you smile, closing the book and turning your attention towards him. He hated how your eye lashes fluttered, your hair falling down in just the perfect way. “I've been gaining some Targaryen knowledge, as you can see. Since we are to be married, I thought I should know my husband's family. Don't you think?”
Husband.
That word rose heat to his cheeks, quickly clearing his throat.
“I'm not your husband.” he spoke, in a tone harsher than he intended, “At least not yet anyway.”
You smile wider, making his heart race. He was always a bit stubborn, and uptight. Yet you were always so carefree and light, always so kind with his demise. He didn't know what to make of it all. A curious look grazed upon your face, eyebrows furrowing. You sat up, walking onwards another shelf of books, lips pursued. Before looking at him.
“I have always wondered, hmm,” you say, your finger coming up to your lips, “do tell me prince Jacaerys, is it true that you were born out of wedlock?”
His eyes widened, “What did you say to me?”
You either did not notice the offend and defensiveness in his tone, or simply pretend not to. Turning to look at him, “I mean, all Targaryen children have white hair. Do they not? Even if they did not, none of your formal parents have black, dark hair like yours.”
His breath hitches, all of the insecurities he had contained in a jar of fireflies fled out the second you brought out his hair. A wall rising inside him. You were acting as if you just did not ask the most dangerous question ever. As if it did not matter to you.
“How dare you insinuate such filthy claims?!” his voice rises, almost shouting. Your eyes flicker surprise for a moment, before turning back to the usual stoic look.
“Ah, you are offended.” you state, as if he shouldn't be, “I meant no harm, my prince. I have no problem with you being a bastard. In fact, it only makes you more interesting. The thing I don't like is your distaste for the truth. One should own up to who they are.”
Bastard.
You, called him a bastard. He isn't able to speak for a moment, too tongue—tied. You....think of him this way too? you? he can't hear as you speak further, a ringing in his head. It only intensifies. Only when you start talking about dorne is when he snaps back from his haze.
“And I have thousands of brothers and sisters back in dorne, no one cares ther—”
“I don't care, what you dornish do back there, but here you don't speak to me with filths of a claim.” he grits, his voice cold, “I am the queen's son. And if I hear you say one word about that again, I will see you hanged.” his words held so much malice in them, one would believe it to be true.
Of course, he could never actually do that, the blacks needed martells armies more than ever. His mother couldn't afford them raging war at her and joining the green's side. And, he could never harm you either. It was just a baseless threat, one he said out of anger and insecurity. He immediately regretted it when he saw the look on your face; hurt. But even worse, fear. Before he could even begin to take them back, it was too late. Your spot, where you stood, was already empty.
You had seen him less and less after that. Of course, you were your usual self. Taunting and teasing him, but something was off. Something distant. He hated it. He hated how much he missed it. Your remarks, your witty replies, your cockiness. He wanted it back. He wanted you back.
Next time he sees you, it's in a completely unexpected place. Dragon—pit. He was about to ride on Vermax to patrol the skies, when he stops. There you were, sat on the hard rock, legs swinging at the edge of it and his dragon's head in your hands. You..you were feeding him. “What the hell do you think you're doing?!” he shouts, eye wide.
You turn your head to him, a smirk on your lips grows. You enjoyed the fact he was on his nerves, furious.
“What does it look like? I'm feeding this cute little angel right here.” you coo, talking to his dragon in a baby voice. Vermax was known for his temper, yet with you it magically dis—appears? a little bit inside him was flustered, heart beating faster than ever that you and his dragon, a very important part of his life, bonded flawlessly. But he shrugs it off, he has to. Flushing over you isn't his duty.
Protecting you is.
As much as he would like to deny it, you're his now. Lawfully so. And he wouldn't let anything happen to you. Especially Vermax. He wouldn't know how to live with himself if his own dragon were to be the cause of, of.. your demise. His throat burns, even the mere thought of harm coming to you feels as if he's being drowned to death. After Luke, he cannot lose anyone. Jacaerys cannot lose you. Even if that was the first thing he tried to do after meeting you. You were the most part of his frustrations yet the only thought when he's in his bed at night.
“Have you lost your mind?” he asks, his voice harsh, as if you were his child and he was scolding you for doing something childish.
“Have you had no fear? you could have died what were you even thinking?!” you falter for a moment, upon seeing the trembling of his hands and the tightness in his voice.
“Jacaerys—”
“No!” he interrupts you, “You, you could have been...do you even realise..”
Your eyes widened as he struggled to even breath, huffing for air anxiously. You quickly get up, walking towards him. He's so much inside his head that he doesn't notice your hands coming up his face, slinging through his dark curly hair. An act that slowed and claimed his beating heart down. Your soft palms make contact with both his cheeks, a peaceful shush in your voice and he finally breathes. Properly. He sighed, eyes closing as his hands came up to hold yours.
This, you, him? this felt oddly peaceful. This felt like home. Vermax watches the whole interaction with a quiet huff, turning away back to the pits. You nudge closer towards him, resting your forehead against his. Love. This felt like love. “Promise me” he starts out, his voice low and timid, “promise you will never do that again.”
Instead of putting on a fight like you usually do, you nod, gently caressing his cheek. His head leaned further into your touch, putty in your hands.
“I promise.”
That, gives him great relief. “Good.”
Time seems to slow down, Jacaerys could count every freckle on your nose to cheeks, every small cut in between your knuckles or lips, every curve of smile you put on. And all the scents coming from your body that drove him crazy. You notice his lips still trembling, and above your judgement, you decide to kiss it better. He inhales a sharp breath as your lips touch his, but makes no movement to push you away. It's gentle, barely brushing against his. Jacaerys realised how they fit perfectly amidst his, and how much he was craving it all these months until he finally tasted them.
You slowly pull away, hesitantly. His eyes are still closed. Hands crawling up your waist. He speaks again, a whisper almost.
“I'm sorry. I never meant to hurt you.”
He's talking about the library, and you smiled softly, shaking your head.
“It's okay. You can't get rid of me that easily, Jace. Should have known that when you got betrothed to a dornish princess.”
You had already forgiven him. But he didn't want you to. He didn't want to be at your mercy this easily, not when he wasn't able to forgive himself. You, you had crept your way into his heart when he didn't want you to, and now he never wanted to let you go.
It was all your fault.
“No I...” he shakes his head, “I never should have said that. Not only because it was wrong but also completely untrue.” Jacaerys swallows his breath, every bit of him wanted to turn away and never look back, but he couldn't do that. “I have been called names, about my heritage. Ever since I was a child. About my parenting and what not. And it's very...when anyone talks about it, it's like a bandage ripping off a new and fresh wound. No matter how many years pass by, it's still like that for me.”
You nod your head slowly, in understanding. This was raw. He had finally told you one of his darkest parts, his worst fears, and you hadn't run away.
“I understand. I should have never said that. I did not know it was like this for you.” He feels relief in your words.
But there was still something he needed to let out.
“But I...” he didn't know how hard this was for him until he started to actually say it, “I really could never mean it. What I said. Even if you have committed the worst treason or crime, even if you had taken my heart and carved it out, I still wouldn't be able to do one thing that might be even close to harming you. Believe me I have tried. And I have failed.”
He looks away from you, cheeks closing red. Jacaerys had just poured his heart out and gave it to you. But the chances of you, and feeling the same? were very dim. He sees stars when he sees you, what do you see? just him? or even worse? a filth in the name of a true born prince. A gasp leaves his lips as your fingers trace the outlines of his jaw, trailing down to his neck to his chest. You stopped at the red and black three dragons symbol made on the polish cloth he wore.
“Why do you think I agreed to this marriage? not because of this.” you point to the very symbol engraved on his chest, of the house targaryen, “If it was just for this, I certainly would have never.”
He turns his head back to you, confusion in his face. He also feels a bit of guilt in him. At first, he only agreed to this pact because his mother had no choice. Because of your house. Nothing else. And you're saying that his house didn't even matter to you when you agreed to this betrothal? then why? you did not even know what he looked like, and you simply agreed?
“Why then?”
That's the question that's now left in him. Why, if his house and title didn't matter?
“Well,” your lips curl up, a glint in your eyes, as a blush arose your cheeks, “From years I had heard stories of Targaryen princes. How arrogant and unkind they were, your uncles, Aegon and Aemond, well I certainly didn't hear anything good about them. And then you came. The velaryon prince, the son of the realm's delight, born with a kind heart and a fierceness to protect. I knew I had to marry someday, but I only agreed to marry you because I knew—you wouldn't mistreat me. Because I fell in love with the stories of the dark haired prince who had the most beautiful brown eyes ever, who protected his brother when he was a child himself, who stole my heart before he even claimed it.”
Jacaerys doesn't know what to say, his throat falls dry. It doesn't feel real, when he's wanted something so dearly and someone just gives it to him freely; it does not feel real. You do not feel real. But you are. He knows you are when your hands tug at his collar, his face close to you as you pull him towards you and your breath fanning on his cheeks. He knows this is real, and it's better than any dream he's ever had.
“I do not want our marriage to be an unhappy one.”
You say, a plea in your voice.
He smiles, wide. And he doesn't even have to make an effort this time, “For me, the words unhappy and you? well they don't go in the same sentence.”
That seals it for you, he can see that. As you kiss his words, an unspoken understanding and passion in it. Jacaerys realises he could get used to this. Kisses, hugs, reading each other books, waking by the warmth of your body besides his; in fact, there's no one else he'd rather do it by. And nothing he would want more.
You're his princess, and one day you will be the queen by his side. He'd make sure of it.
summary : your mother, rhaenyra targaryen, during her marriage to laenor velaryon had reconnected with her former lover, daemon targaryen—developing an affair in which resulted into pregnancy. carrying you and your older twin brother, aerion. rumors and gossip spread through the realm like wildfire, claiming aerion to be more legitimate and more fit to be king than your eldest brother, jacaerys. as both sons fight for their rightful place as heir to the throne, they fight for your hand in marriage
pairings : aerion targaryen x twin!sister!reader, jacaerys velaryon x younger!sister!reader
warnings : incest (reader is targaryen), tension, sexual content, age gap (reader is 2 years younger than jace), misogyny, self-harm, aerion is a warning itself, violence, reader is lowk a little shit towards everyone, angst, teen pregnancy, birth, vermithor and silverwing are claimed !
“Don’t touch.”
…
“Don’t touch!”
Aerion refused to listen to his brother, still moving his hand mindlessly to touch the dragon egg in the steamy pot, the same way he picked for the cradle of their baby sibling. He took great pleasure in seeing Luke cry and pout when he wanted to pick the egg but alas, Aerion always got what he wanted.
In awe, you still kept your gaze on the egg, mesmerized by the pretty scales. Aerion had picked a beautiful egg.
From afar, all the siblings could hear the screams of their mother during her labor. You swore it would be a girl this time, mentioning to your mother that the babe should be named after one of the conquerors.
“—...ow!”
“I said don’t touch it!” Jace shouted, immediately scolding Aerion, watching his younger brother dunk his hand into an ice bath containing wine, while Jace put the head of the pot back on and locked it.
You sighed at the sight in front of you before suppressing your giggle, “You never listen.”
“Why would I? I am a dragon, I don’t have to listen to anyone.” Aerion boasted, puffing out his chest proudly as if he actually were a dragon himself.
You finally giggled but Jace remained stern, giving Aerion a good nudge on his shoulder.
Luke was too busy playing on the floor with Ser Harwin, wooden toys in both hands as he screamed and crashed the figures together, completely forgetting the whole ordeal back from the dragon pit.
All of you remained waiting in your mother’s chambers, anticipating when she would finish giving birth and hopefully come back to her chambers to greet you all first with the babe.
“Mother will be fine,” Aerion said, voice calm… and oddly confident.
Jace glared, feeling somewhat more annoyed by his younger brother. “You don’t know that.”
Aerion shrugged his shoulders, not bothering to look at his brother before he came closer towards you, pinching your cheek with a bit of harshness before you winced, shoving him off lightly.
“Yes I do.”
That seemed to only tick Jace off even more.
Luke swallowed, his sweet little brown eyes shining with tears. “S-She’s been screaming for hours. I don’t wish for Mother to die.”
“Childbirth is natural, Luke… Mother is strong.” You said, agreeing with your twin as you smiled down to Luke, offering him a warm embrace. “Pain is temporary.”
“The princess is right. She will be fine.” Ser Harwin spoke, trying to ease the little prince’s mind.
Jace’s face tightened, continuing to glare at Aerion.
You looked over at Jace and then back at Aerion, you could notice the tension from a mile away.
Sure. Their little quarrels can be amusing, especially when you seem to be caught between them from time to time.
Time seemed to pass so slowly. It was utterly quiet and boring.
But also nerve-wracking.
You couldn’t deny that you were also awfully worried for your mother. You silently prayed that she would be healthy, and so would the babe.
Jace turned his head slightly, looking down at your lap and saw your hands fiddling with the fabric of your skirt.
He knew.
Slowly but reassuringly, his hand moved and grasped yours, offering some kind of comfort, to which you appreciated graciously.
“Mother!” Luke cried, the quiet comfort between you and your brother breaking as Luke rushed across the room with impatience and relief, throwing his arms around her.
“Luke! Be careful!”
You and Jace followed as well, but were more careful than your younger brother.
Aerion stayed behind of course, never the affectionate one but he looked visibly relieved.
Mother was alright. That’s what mattered.
“My sweet children,” Rhaenyra murmured, her voice quiet but warm. She hugged you all tightly, pressing a soft kiss on your forehead.
“Princess,” Ser Harwin greeted, bowing his head slightly out of respect.
Rhaenyra nodded in return, offering the commander of the city-watch a kind smile. Rhaenyra’s gaze slid to something softer after a second went by before she looked away again, remembering her children were still here..
Her eyes trailed from you, Jace, and Luke before settling on Aerion, who appeared to pay attention to the babe in Laenor’s hands.
Aerion’s face was scrunched up, nose slightly twitching, eyes squinted.
The babe’s hair was brown. Yet again.
Then Aerion saw Laenor’s thumb brush the tiny boy’s cheek with tenderness, shushing him with quiet but loving words.
It seemed stupid to have this much irritation and hatred towards his own father. If he actually was their father.
Aerion wasn’t a fool, unlike everyone else around him.
That wasn’t his father. It couldn’t be. He refused it since the day he was born, along with you.
Rhaenyra’s gaze narrowed immediately, always the intuitive one when it came to the little troublemaker, Aerion.
“Aerion,” she said, voice low. “Come.”
Aerion begrudgingly but obediently approached.
Rhaenyra’s gaze flicked over him, searching for trouble like routinely when it came to him. “Did you behave yourself while I was gone?”
Aerion stood firm. “Yes.”
Rhaenyra stared, expecting to catch something from his demeanor alone.
…
“He filled Aegon’s chamber pot with bees, Mother!” You interrupted, grinning as you watched as your mother lightly pinched his cheek. “The queen was furious!”
The young prince let out a small wince, glaring at you with slight annoyance, “Ow…! Sister is lying, Mother! She’s a snake!”
“Am not!” You shouted.
“Yes you are!” Aerion shouted back.
“Aerion leave our sister alone!” Jace butted in, trying to ease the growing argument between his twin siblings.
Just the sight alone of her children quarreling was a headache but a sweet sight to see. Rhaenyra quickly ruffled both you and Aerion's fluffy white locks.
Then Rhaenyra nodded her head towards Laenor. “Here,” she said softly, and you all turned to look at the babe. “Your brother, Joffrey.”
Laenor lowered the babe in his arms, just a bit, presenting him to the rest of his children.
“Gentle, sweetlings..” he murmured. All of you went meek, astonished by how little he was and lively he seemed to be as his tiny hands raised in the air, balled into fists.
"Mother…, look," Jace said, opening the warm pot as she moved to find a seat. Rhaenyra glanced at the dragon egg as she carefully sat down with Ser Harwin's help.
"We chose an egg for the baby." Luke finished for Jace.
You quickly moved to be seated next to your mother, wrapping your small hands around her, eagerly basking in her warmth.
"Ahh...that looks like the perfect one.”
"It's not everyday a dragon egg leaves the dragon pit, my princess. I thought it was best to escort them." Ser Harwin explained.
Rhaenyra nodded, reassured, "Laenor and I thank you, Commander."
Jace closed the pot and you focused your eyes back on the newborn.
As Laenor was coddling the babe, whispering sweet things. You can hear him clearly, "You will make a fine knight," he had said.
You caught yourself staring far too long, practically ignoring all around you. Squinting your eyes too many times in hopes little Joffrey would magically turn into a girl.
You remember wailing like a spoiled princess upon the introduction to little Luke after birth.
You were bullied endlessly by your twin for years after the events, to the point that even Luke made the assumption that you hated him but that was never the case.
With silence disappearing quickly, Rhaenyra uttered, "Ser Harwin wishes to be introduced to Joffrey."
The Velaryon didn't argue. He simply gave the babe to Ser Harwin before he started to rock the babe gently. "Joffrey, is it?" he asked.
Laenor nodded. The name left you slightly baffled, it was an unusual name for a Velaryon or a Targaryen but you did not want to voice your opinion.
Finally, Harwin lifted his gaze. He looked first at Rhaenyra, a nod so slight it was almost imagined. Then to Laenor, a deeper, grateful nod.
"Father, may I hold Joffrey?"
Suddenly, Luke came closer. His tiny hands reaching towards the baby, trying to hold him before getting yanked away by Jace and your father.
“No, no, no." Laenor fiercely exclaimed, dragging them both out, "Off to the dragon pit, you three."
"But I wish to hold Joffrey!" Luke whined.
Laenor’s voice gentled, the practical seafarer reasserting himself. “Enough. Your mother needs rest. Jace. Luke. Aerion. Dragonpit. Y/n, septa studies.”
To that, you began to join Luke’s whining. You absolutely hated your readings, you rather be out there with your brothers.
Trying to cease a bond with a dragon considering that you and Aerion still hadn’t gotten the chance to bond with one yet. Or have an egg hatched in your former cradles.
Rhaenyra’s eyes caught Aerion’s before the gathering would head out the chamber doors.
“Aerion,” she called.
The young boy stilled, turning back around before walking towards his mother as his siblings left the room with Laenor. “Yes, Mother?”
Her gaze searched his face, more serious this time.
“Be good,” she whispered.
Aerion let out a small huff, already used to this talk. “I will.”
Rhaenyra did not look convinced, her hand moving to brush his bangs away from his eyes, adoring the pout on his chubby face.
“I mean it. Be good to your sister. I don’t wish to see any more quarrels between the two of you.” She continued, urging him to actually listen. “That is your sister. You protect her..not fight her. Understand?”
For a moment, Aerion was quiet.
He looked back at Rhaenyra with less annoyance now, showing that he was taking in her words.
He nodded, truthfully this time. “Yes Mother.”
She gave him a soft smile, moving her hand away to allow him to leave.
The door closed right behind Aerion.
.
.
.
Huff..
Huff…
“Let go of me..!” You cried out.
Huff..
Huff…
Luke had already been beaten to the floor, nose broken with blood trickling down his swollen face.
Baela and Rhaena were holding up each other, staring with fear in their eyes.
Jace was stagnant in where he was, feeling useless. Scared.
You continued to cry out, your trembling hands tried to reach behind you to release Aemond’s hold on your hair.
You were in distress. Aerion watched as your pretty silvery hair was tangled into Aemond’s hands, face slightly cut from his scratches.
He had only arrived just shortly, sensing something was wrong when you didn’t come to bed..
Call it twin intuition if you must.
The young boy’s chest was heaving heavily, eyes slightly widened and expression filled with immense anger.
Protect her..
Save her..
He quickly moved once Aemond raised the rock higher in the air, about to strike you right in the head with it.
Wielding the Valyrian steel in his right hand, Aerion moved it swiftly with the intent of saving his sister.
“RELEASE HER!” Aerion roared.
The blade smoothly cut across the prince’s face. Deepening the cut further, blood gushed out.
It all happened so quickly.
Aemond had released you without a second thought, clutching his left eye… or the remainder of what’s left.
His yells of agony could be heard from miles away as he fell to the ground.
And the strange part was…
Aerion didn’t feel guilty.
You fell on your bottom, harshly. Immediately crawling to where your older brother was, clinging to Jace like a lifeline as you cried into his neck.
As the yells furthered, the Kingsguard had finally been alerted.
All of them move past you, your siblings, and cousins to get to Aemond.
“My prince… let me see…” You could see from just his expression alone that Aemond no longer possessed a pair of eyes.
But you weren’t watching him.
Your eyes slowly gazed over to Aerion.
He was still standing where he had cut Aemond’s eye out.
No movement at all from the little prince.
But you swear that you’d seen the faintest glimpse of a smirk on his pale face.
.
.
.
When writing the history books of House Targaryen, maesters would say that Aerion had meant to kill Aemond that night.
Surely not for the sole purpose of protecting his sister..
Had that very night been the start of his cruel, monstrous ways?
hi guys !! omg it’s been a fat minute..but hi !! i had to tap in that aerion obsession..that’s my man 😻😻
this is the only chapter that’s not timeskip don’t worry don’t worry
you’re being fed with chapter 2
also creds: @a-lina @hxtd
love lea !! thank you for proof reading and helping me hehe 🥹🥹🩵🩵
i don’t mean intense in a way that you might ever feel some sort of discomfort or perhaps even pain —because otherwise, i’m certain jace wouldn’t forgive himself for hurting you in any way— but rather, as intense as you’ll allow him to be. in my perception, jacaerys pretty much abides to whatever thing you verbally express that you desire with no reluctance. anything to please his queen, after all.
his mother raised him to be a proper gentleman, as well as a responsible heir to the throne. keeping this in mind, i think that at the very beginning of your first sexual experiences with one another, jace will treat you as if you were made of the finest glass—so gently, and his touch on your skin will resemble that as if he were passing the tip of his fingers through recently bloomed petals of a flower. jace would enter your insides leisurely, being observant of your every facial expression, of your noises, or if you ever tell him to pause for a moment; allowing your virgin cunt to adjust to his size until the initial pain washes into a soothing pleasure.
but, once your body has adapted to having jace’s size buried inside of you, and feel confident enough to express your sexual desires to him? perhaps even tease him, or beg —rather, encourage— him to pound you faster during sex? then, this man will lose every last bit of restraint for the sake of your pleasure.
he’d attempt to bury himself so far inside, as deep as it can go,, to the point that you forget your own name. his cock pounds against your dripping cunt so pleasantly as if he were pussy starved; every thrust hitting & angling just right to hit that one spot that makes your back arch—the only thing spurring from your lips abruptly, is his name each time his shaft hits your sensitive spot. you can feel the way his cock throbs inside you, stretching you open a bit more with every push.
jace gets loud in the process... too loud, at times, should i say. groans, curses under his breath in high valyrian, he whimpers your name like a prayer when your walls tightly clench around his twitching cock. but can you blame him? because i believe that with the way this man would pound your cunt just so vigorously, it would be a little bit of an impossible task not to shout, rather than simply moan, his name... and those sweet, sweet sounds that escape from you, his queen, at the pleasure you receive from him only serves to boost his confidence, and that inner freaky jace he’s in him. jacaerys would be obsessed with your pleasure, with your physical reactions as he fucks the life out of you—often changing positions in the process to maintain the spiciness and pound against you in every possible angle known to man.
he’ll lean down to nibble on the skin of your neck and breasts with his teeth, enough to leave marks on you, while he continues to pound harder and deeper into you. if you tell him you want it faster, he’ll give it to you until you’re shaking, barely able to sputter a coherent phrase and failing in the attempt—if you ask him to go slower and gentler, his entire mood shifts to abide to whatever orders you give him; becoming that sweet, softer jace you usually know... and if you ask him to choke you just a little, his hand will wrap around your throat with a perfect pressure as his lips guide themselves to groan against your own, kissing you in a filthy, desperate manner; knowing exactly how to move his hips to hit those spots he know they make you tremble, holding a tight grip on your hips to keep you in your place.
but even in the middle of all that intensity, he’s still your sweet, gentlemanly jace. between thrusts he’ll whisper filthy praises against your skin, checking occassionally if it’s too much, or not enough. jacaerys lives for the moment your eyes roll back and your walls flutter around his cock, often spurting your own fluids against his size and the bedsheets, and he’ll keep fucking you through your orgasm—drawing it out until you’re shaking and crying from how good it feels. when he finally comes, which of course he would prioritise your own orgasm before his own, it’s with a guttural moan; hips stuttering as he spills his warm seed deep inside you, eating your lips out in a sloppy kiss in the process. don’t be surprised if he has a thing to leave his cum on several parts of your body, and is up to several rounds throughout the night.
afterwards? after all that intensity, all that freakiness? oohh, he’s the softest. cleaning you up very gently, kissing every mark he left on your delicate skin, holding you close, cuddling you tightly against his body while murmuring just how much he adores you with the deepest fibre of his soul—how perfect you are, how he’d burn the world for you.
aaaahh... i think that, at the end of the day, jacaerys doesn’t just fuck you—he worships you with his entire body until you forget every name... except his own, of course. and God only knows i could never shut up about jacaerys and his intensity during sex just to pleasure you to the core.
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Synopsis: The third arrow strikes, sealing the fate of Jacaerys Velaryon… except he wakes up in a world without dragons, convinced it was only a dream. Or was it? Because there is one promise his soul never forgot, and somehow… yours remembers it too.
↳ Sequel ‘YOUR TOUCH’
Pairing: Jacaerys Velaryon x fem!Reader
Genre: reincarnation au, modern!jacaerys, established relationship
Warning: None tbh its just fluff (coping mechanism🥹), there is no specific description of reader so enjoy, no aegon or viserys, Rhaenyra is married to Laenor but its platonic, inaccurate description of battle of the gullet? (I tried-).
A/N: I recently got into HOTD and then I lost my favourite character aka Jace. I made this blog so I can be delulu about him 😭. Also half of this is me word vomiting🥴.
Word Count: 10.1k
- English is not my first language so / apologise in advance for any mistakes or typos!
The sea did not merely roll that day, it burned.
Fire danced with a horrific, erratic grace across the blackened waters of the Gullet, transforming the vital shipping lane into a sprawling, floating graveyard. Flames leapt from ship to ship in hungry arcs, feeding on timber and pitch and the desperate prayers of drowning men. Beneath the merciless onslaught of Team Black’s dragons, mighty Triarchy war-galleys splintered like kindling, their hulls cracking open to swallow their crews whole. Great masts toppled into the waves with the slow, theatrical finality of falling monuments. And yet, this was no easy victory. No clean triumph etched into the history books with golden ink. Below, Lord Corlys Velaryon’s fleet fought with everything it had, attempting to trap the armada in the narrow, choking passage, buying time in blood and smoke and screaming iron.
The atmosphere was a living thing, a suffocating shroud woven from the sharp salt tang of brine, the acrid bite of billowing smoke, the unmistakable iron-sweetness of fresh blood, and the sickening, almost honeyed stench of burning pitch. It coated the throat and burned the eyes.
High above the carnage, roaring through the roiling tempest of fire and ash, rode Prince Jacaerys Velaryon.
He sat astride Vermax like a man born to the sky because he was. The great emerald dragon cut through the smoke-choked air like a gleaming blade, his scales catching the hellish firelight below, wings spread wide. Jace’s riding leathers were already dark with spray and soot. His dark curls whipped against his face. He did not notice. His eyes were fixed on the battle, calculating and measuring, feeling the terrible weight of command settle across his shoulders with the intimacy of something he had worn all his life.
He had locked his mother in her chambers at Dragonstone before leaving. Had stood outside the door and listened to her pound against it, her voice cracking on his name. The sound had nearly unmade him entirely. But she was the queen. She was the cause. She could not be lost, and Jacaerys Velaryon had long since made peace with the arithmetic of that.
She lives. Therefore, I go.
Beside him, Baela streaked across the smoke on Moondancer fierce and brilliant, her silver hair streaming behind her like a war banner. And then, piercing through the mist like something half-imagined, a new silhouette emerged. Jace’s eyes snapped to it. His stomach lurched with shock before his heart swelled with a pride so fierce it nearly hurt.
Rhaena. Flying the wild dragon Sheepstealer.
Of course she was.
Together they were three dragons raining hell from the heavens, and for one blazing, exhilarating moment, Jace believed they might actually win this despite Sheepstealer almost knocking him out. He watched their collective fire devastate Admiral Lohar’s vanguard below, great tongues of flame consuming the armada’s leading ships, sending men screaming into the sea. He felt the savage triumph of it. The rightness.
Then the heavy, rhythmic thrum of scorpions began.
Massive iron bolts tore through the clouds around them. The Triarchy fleet was enormous, he had known this, had known it academically the way one knows a thing from maps and reports but knowing it and watching it materialize below him in all its terrible scale were entirely different experiences.
He pressed Vermax into a steep, dangerously low dive.
Below, through the roiling chaos, Jace had spotted Lord Corlys’s flagship being violently rammed by Lohar’s vessel. The silver-haired sea snake, his grandfather by every measure that mattered, surrounded and struggling. Jace made his decision in the space of half a breath. He would break the enemy lines. He would fly low. He would end this.
He flew too close to the water.
His focus had narrowed to a single burning point, the ships, the threat, the duty and so he did not hear the volley until it was already too late.
A heavy iron shaft sliced violently through the membrane of Vermax’s right wing with a sound like tearing cloth and screaming metal fused together. Another slammed directly into the dragon’s chest with a concussive, world-shaking force that Jace felt through every bone in his body.
Vermax screamed.
The sound ripped through Jace like a physical blade. Not a roar, not the magnificent, terrible declaration of a dragon in battle. A scream. Raw and agonizing and so deeply personal that Jace felt his own lungs seize in sympathy, as though the bolt had pierced him too. The great emerald body shuddered beneath him. The massive wings faltered, losing the steady rhythm that held them aloft. The world tilted.
They were falling.
“No-”
Jace yanked desperately on the reins, his boots straining hard against the stirrups, body thrown forward as the sea rushed upward to meet them with terrifying speed. Wind screamed past his ears. The fire and the smoke and the battle became a chaotic blur of sensation.
“Vermax, fly!”
The dragon fought. Even now, even broken and burning, Vermax fought. A beast born of fire, refusing absolutely to yield to the water. One wing beat heavily, then another. The torn membrane fluttered uselessly, a tattered rag of what it had been, but still Vermax tried, and something in Jace’s chest shattered at the sight of it.
“Soves!” His voice broke on the word, all royal dignity stripped away, reduced to something raw and helpless and very young. “Soves, Vermax! Please-”
One final, agonizing beat of the wings.
It was not enough.
Freezing, brine-heavy water swallowed Jacaerys Velaryon whole. It was not like diving, it was like being struck by the earth itself, like the sea had become solid in the last instant before collision, and he felt the shock travel up through his ankles, his knees, his spine, rattling his teeth in his skull. The sheer velocity of the crash tore his fingers from the saddle. The weight of his armor dragged at him immediately, a slow, patient, lethal pull downward into the dark.
Primal instinct flared.
He unhooked himself and practically clawed upward. His lungs burned. The cold was absolute, the kind that doesn’t feel cold at all but rather feels like being unmade, like the sea was simply erasing him a layer at a time. He could see nothing, only dark water and distant fire and the enormous bulk of Vermax somewhere below him, a shadow become a nightmare.
He burst through the surface with a gasp so violent it tore his throat.
“Vermax!”
He spun in the churning water, hair plastered to his face, salt burning his eyes. The battle raged on around him, ships groaning and splitting, men screaming, iron raining from all directions. The world had not paused for him.
“Vermax!”
Through the haze of cresting waves, he found him. His dragon, his Vermax, who had carried him since boyhood, who had grown as he had grown, who had been as much a part of him as his own heartbeat was desperately trying to swim. The damaged wings beat uselessly to try to swim up. His great neck was straining upward. His eyes, when they met Jace’s from below the water, held something that a person with less grief in them might have dismissed as imagination.
They did not look like the eyes of an animal.
They looked like the eyes of someone saying goodbye.
A massive anchor, or debris, Jace could not tell which, tangled around Vermax’s exhausted body. The sea accepted its offering. With a final, sorrowful look that Jacaerys Velaryon would carry with him for the rest of his life.
He never resurfaced.
Something inside Jace broke. Not cracked. Not bent. Broke, the way an old bone breaks, the kind that doesn’t ever quite knit back the same way. He hauled his upper body onto a large piece of floating wreckage with the determination of a body that had not yet received the message from his mind that none of this mattered anymore. His chest heaved in ragged, desperate gasps. He was shaking. He was exhausted in a way that reached all the way down into whatever part of him had believed, until this moment, that he might survive this.
He had not brought enough of that belief. He saw that now.
He thought of his mother.
The image of her face, proud and terrified and trying not to show either rose unbidden. He had done this for her. Had done all of it for her. He hoped she would understand, someday, that locking her in her chambers had been the most love he had ever offered anyone.
He thought of Baela. Of Rhaena.
He thought of-
A sharp, dull impact struck his upper back.
Jace lurched forward with a sound that was almost nothing, barely a breath. Confused, of all things, not yet understanding, he glanced over his shoulder. A heavy crossbow bolt protruded from his shoulder blade at an angle that his mind catalogued with strange, distant calm, the way one notices a detail in a painting.
Slowly, numbly, he turned his head toward the source.
A Triarchy war-galley drifted just yards away. Lined along the wooden railing stood a row of Admiral Lohar’s soldiers, unhurried, methodical, their crossbows leveled at the figure in the water.
They knew exactly who he was. There was no urgency in their posture, no battlefield fever. This was an execution.
The heir to the Iron Throne, stranded and defenseless.
A second bolt flew. It slammed into his chest. He heard it before he felt it.
Then a third...straight to the neck.
A strange, sudden calm washed over him.
The deafening roar of the battle receded, becoming muffled, distant, the way sounds narrow when one goes underwater. The sea rocked him gently now, almost tenderly, as if it had been waiting all along to offer this small mercy at the end. He had not expected kindness. He was grateful for it.
He thought of his mother, safe on Dragonstone.
He thought of Baela’s laughter.
He thought of his brothers.
And he thought with a softness that surprised him, with something that might have been the very last warmth his body could generate, of you. Of a future that would not be built. Of a promise he was not sure, now, that he had ever been given the chance to make.
The last image to imprint itself on the fading mind of Jacaerys Velaryon was that reflection.
A burning sky, mirrored in the water.
Beautiful.
Tragic.
Then everything went black.
┈┈・ ✦ ・┈┈
BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.
Jacaerys bolted upright with a gasp that felt like surfacing.
His eyes flew open. His hand flew to his chest and then to his neck, pressing hard against his sternum, feeling for something, a wound, an absence, a bolt buried in bone and found nothing but the soft cotton of his t-shirt and the solid, living rhythm of his own heart.
He sat there for a long moment, chest heaving, and simply stared at the ceiling.
White plaster. Crown moulding. A small water stain shaped vaguely like a continent.
No smoke.
No dragon.
No sea.
No battle.
Just a bedroom. His bedroom.
Morning sunlight filtered through floor-to-ceiling windows in long, clean shafts, illuminating the warm disorder of his life: the desk buried under business textbooks and notebooks with pages dog-eared and margins crowded with his handwriting, his laptop open from the night before with a lecture slide still visible on the screen, a hoodie slung over the back of his desk chair. Outside the windows, King’s Landing stretched endlessly in the early light, the city already stirring, glass towers catching the sun.
His alarm clock flashed 7:00 AM.
No swords or the banners of House Targaryen.
Jace pressed the heels of both palms against his eyes and breathed.
The memories were still there. That was the wrong word for them, memories. They did not feel like the soft, dissolving stuff of ordinary dreams that faded on the edges as soon as you tried to examine them. They felt like the other kind of remembering, the kind that lives in the body rather than the mind. He could still feel the cold of the Gullet in his fingers. He could still smell the smoke. He could still feel the weight of dragon-riding leathers across his shoulders, the particular pull of Vermax’s movement through the air, the way the saddle had sat against the backs of his thighs.
He could still feel the bolts.
Just a dream, he told himself. The words felt inadequate in his own mouth, like trying to describe a storm with the word weather. He muttered them anyway, pressing his face harder into his palms.
“Just a dream.”
A dream where he had been a prince.
A prince who had died.
His stomach dropped with a physical lurch. The alarm was still beeping. He silenced it with a slap and sat on the edge of the bed for one more moment, just one, breathing in the ordinary scent of his ordinary room..
Then his brain supplied the information he had been avoiding.
Classes.
Shit.
He was already late.
He moved through his morning routine with the efficiency of someone running on instinct rather than thought, shower, clothes, a cursory battle with his curls that ended, as it always did, in a draw. He emerged from the bathroom in jeans and sneakers and his favorite dark hoodie, his hair doing exactly what it wanted. There wasn’t time to argue with it. There was rarely ever time.
The smell of coffee reached him in the hallway. It pulled at something in his chest and he followed it through the penthouse to the kitchen.
His steps halted in the doorway.
Rhaenyra stood at the island counter, reading something on her tablet with the focused, slightly stern expression she wore when she was processing information she found annoying. A coffee mug steamed beside her elbow, forgotten. She was already dressed soft grey, elegant, effortlessly so in the way that had always seemed to come naturally to her and she looked exactly as she always looked in the morning, tired by all the corporate bullshit.
CEO of Targaryen Corporation. One of the most influential women in King’s Landing. The most formidable person he had ever known.
His mother.
The word hit him somewhere unsteady. Something twisted painfully in his chest, relief so acute it nearly hurt, threaded through with the dreaming grief of a boy who had watched her face in his mind as the water closed over him, who had spent his last conscious moment believing she was safe, needing her to be safe, and had been right without ever knowing he was right.
He crossed the room before he had consciously decided to.
He wrapped his arms around her.
Rhaenyra nearly dropped her coffee.
“Jacaerys-”
She caught herself, setting the mug down with a firm clink on the marble countertop, and then without hesitation, because she had always been this, whatever else she was, she wrapped her arms around him and held him back.
“Sweet boy.” Her voice was softer now. Her fingers found their way into his curls the way they had when he was very small. “What’s the matter?”
Jace swallowed against the tightness in his throat.
The dream came rushing back through him like a tide, the war, the weight of a crown his mother should have inherited without blood, the desperate, bone-deep need to protect her. The image of her face as he had walked away from Dragonstone, toward the dragon, toward the battle, toward the Gullet. The way he had looked back.
He shook his head against her shoulder.
“I’m fine.”
“You are clearly not fine.”
Her hand moved in slow, soothing circles against his back. Despite himself, despite everything, Jace felt something in him begin to loosen.
He laughed. A weak, slightly broken sound, but genuine. “I just…” His voice cracked on the nothing he was trying to say.
Rhaenyra pulled back slightly to look at him. Not the way she looked at her board of directors, or at rivals across conference tables, or at the city from thirty floors up. The other way. The private way, that only he and his brothers ever saw.
“What happened?”
He wiped his eyes quickly, hoping she wouldn’t comment on it and took a breath.
“I had the most vivid dream.”
“What kind of dream?”
He hesitated. There was something strange about saying it. As though speaking about it aloud would make it either more real or less, and he wasn’t sure which outcome he wanted.
“I was a prince,” he said.
Rhaenyra blinked. Whatever she had been expecting, it was not that.
“A prince?”
“Yeah.” A small smile found its way onto his face, unwilling, almost involuntary. “You were a queen.”
Something passed across her expression something soft, something she would never have allowed in a meeting room. “Oh?”
“I died fighting a battle for you.”
Silence.
She looked at him for a long moment. Then she reached up and brushed a curl from his forehead with the gentleness that had no performance in it, something she reserved for the three of them and no one else.
“Well,” she said finally, her smile warming to something that was almost, almost teasing. “That sounds exhausting.”
Jace stared. “That’s all you’ve got?”
“You are standing in my kitchen wearing yesterday’s hoodie and telling me about dragon wars, Jacaerys.”
He opened his mouth to protest then closed it. “Fair.”
She squeezed his shoulder. “It was only a dream.”
“You know,” said a new voice from the doorway, “some families start their mornings with good morning.”
Luke wandered in carrying a cereal box like a trophy, nineteen years old and permanently, professionally smug. He surveyed the scene with the cheerful heartlessness of a younger brother who had found ammunition and intended to use it.
“Did Jace finally lose his mind?”
Behind him, Joffrey, fourteen and grinning with the particular delight of someone who had been waiting for this squeezed past into the kitchen. “About time.”
Jace rolled his eyes so hard it was almost an athletic achievement. “There he is.”
“Dreaming about being a prince?” Luke plucked a bowl from the cupboard with casual ease. “That’s because you’re already treated like one.”
The napkin Jace threw hit him square in the face. Luke threw it back. Rhaenyra sighed with the air of a woman who had calculated exactly how many more years of this lay before her and found the number disheartening.
“My sons,” she said, picking up her coffee. “Truly intellectual giants.”
┈┈・ ✦ ・┈┈
Breakfast passed with the comfortable velocity of mornings that had been rehearsed through repetition until they ran themselves. Luke complaining about something, Joffrey eating cereal in quantities that defied his size, Rhaenyra reading from her tablet while simultaneously tracking all three of them with the peripheral attention of someone who had never once been entirely off duty.
Jace was reaching for his coffee when Rhaenyra glanced up.
“Are you still picking up your girlfriend?”
He froze.
The coffee cup remained halfway to his face, arrested in mid-air.
“…My what?”
Luke’s head snapped up. The expression that crossed his face was one of pure, unalloyed joy. He looked like he had been handed a gift.
Rhaenyra stared at her eldest with the patient, faintly incredulous expression of a woman who had not expected to be performing this particular reality check on a Tuesday morning.
“Your girlfriend.”
“Oh.” Jace set the cup down carefully. “Right.”
You.
He had a girlfriend.
A beautiful girlfriend, and she was his girlfriend, and she had been his girlfriend for- he was briefly lost in the arithmetic of it, which was itself a kind of answer and she was wonderful, she was brilliant, she made him laugh, and somehow in the space between waking up with the sea in his lungs and standing in his mother’s kitchen in yesterday’s hoodie, he had momentarily forgotten she existed.
And then, because his brain was apparently in full catastrophic mode this morning: betrothed.
Not yet. Not technically. But the word had been sitting in the back of his mind ever since he woke up from his dream.
Heat flooded his face with spectacular completeness.
Luke nearly choked on his cereal.
“Oh my God.”
“Shut up.”
“You forgot your girlfriend.”
“Only briefly.”
“Only” Luke dissolved entirely, shoulders shaking. Across the table, Joffrey watched with the dignified appreciation of a connoisseur.
Rhaenyra shook her head slowly. “Honestly, Jace.”
“It was a very intense dream,” he said, with as much dignity as one can muster while slowly turning the color of a sunset.
“You forgot your girlfriend.”
“The dream had dragons, Mum.”
She gave him the look. The specific look, the one that had been making him feel twelve years old since he was actually twelve years old. “She’s a lovely girl. I wish you’d bring her home more often.”
Jace stood from the table with the decisive energy of a man drawing a conversation to a close.
“I was planning to.”
“When?”
“Soon.”
“Today?”
“…Possibly.”
“Good.” Rhaenyra returned to her tablet, the slight smile at the corner of her mouth saying everything she was too dignified to say aloud.
┈┈・ ✦ ・┈┈
The underground parking garage was cool and dim, smelling of concrete and oil and the expensive quiet of a building where people took the lift rather than the stairs. Jace’s Porsche sat in its usual spot, Oak Green Metallic, catching the fluorescent light.
Vermax.
He had named the car Vermax which now sounded so ironic to him.
He stood beside the driver’s door for a moment, hand on the handle, the thought arriving fully formed and then sitting there in his chest with an odd weight. He had named his car Vermax years ago. He had thought it was because he liked the sound of it, or because it was the name of a character in a book he’d read, or because of some half-remembered reason that had never quite solidified into anything coherent.
He looked at the car. The deep green of it. The long, low lines of it, built for speed, built for the sky-
Built for the sky.
A strange feeling settled over him, the kind of not-quite-vertigo that comes with recognizing something without being able to name what it is you’re recognizing. Like seeing an old friend across a crowd before you’ve registered their face.
He shook it off. Got in and drove.
┈┈・ ✦ ・┈┈
The street outside your house was quiet in the way that Tuesday mornings in King’s Landing occasionally managed to be, with the morning light that made ordinary things seem briefly considered. Jace pulled to the curb and sat for a moment with the engine idling, window down.
Then the front door opened and you stepped out.
He got out of the car.
The morning light caught your hair the way it always did, making you look almost angelic in Jace’s eyes in that moment. You were still in the act of adjusting the strap of your bag when you spotted him, and the smile that crossed your face. Happy just to see him.
And for one strange, suspended moment, another image overlapped the morning like a transparency laid over a photograph. A figure standing on the cliffs of Dragonstone. The sea grey below and the wind pulling at dark fabric. Watching him leave. The expression on her face, your face, heartbroken and resolute and trying to be neither.
Waiting for him to come back.
The image dissolved as quickly as it had arrived. The morning reasserted itself. You were walking toward the car, your bag settled on your shoulder now, your smile still in place, and Jace found himself already stepping forward already moving toward with certainty that was less decision than gravity.
Before you could say a word, he took your hand and raised it, and pressed a kiss against your knuckles.
Deliberatea and unhurried. Like he’d done it a thousand times before, in other rooms, in other centuries.
“How are you, my beloved?”
You stopped.
Looked at the hand.
Looked at him.
And then, because you were you, you laughed, the bright, surprised sound of someone caught genuinely off guard. “What has gotten into you this morning?” you questioned him.
Jace grinned, and the grin felt more like him than anything else had all morning. “I genuinely have no idea.”
“You’re being sooo weird.” You studied him with the narrowed eyes trying to grasp his words and actions. “How weird is this going to get?”
“I had the wildest dream.”
“Oh?” Already your expression was shifting into the one you wore when you were preparing to be entertained.
He leaned forward and kissed you softly quick, warm and certain.
“In it,” he said against your smile, “you were my princess too.”
Your cheeks went pink with entirely gratifying speed.
“Oh my God.”
“You asked.”
“I asked what was wrong with you, not-”
“Details.”
“Jacaerys Velaryon, I am going to need you to be normal for the next five minutes-”
“I make no promises.”
He opened the passenger door for you, still grinning, and the morning felt lighter than it had when he’d left the penthouse.
The dream wasn’t entirely terrible, he thought, settling behind the wheel. If nothing else, it had done this, sharpened his vision, made ordinary things brilliant again. Made you more vivid than you’d already been, which was saying something considerable.
He found himself smiling the entire drive to university.
┈┈・ ✦ ・┈┈
University should have felt normal.
Instead, Jace spent the entire morning convinced he was losing his mind by degrees as new details of his dream would hit him.
The dream lingered with a persistence that ordinary dreams did not have, the kind he usually forgot by the time he reached the kitchen. This one clung. Every corridor he walked reminded him of castle hallways, the echo of footsteps on stone, and the smell of torch smoke. Every crowded lecture hall conjured the geometry of noble courts; the subtle theatre of power performed through proximity. His Strategic Management lecture had an entire section on resource allocation that kept pulling his thoughts sideways, toward councils and war rooms and Dragonstone.
He stared at his notebook.
He had written, in the margin: Corlys was right about the Gullet.
He had no idea when.
“You’re disassociating again.”
Jace blinked.
Across the seminar table sat Cregan Stark, regarding him with the expression he used on everything: tall, dark-haired, slow-blinking, fundamentally and constitutionally unimpressed by the world and all its events. He was from Winterfell like genuinely, actually from Winterfell, which Jace had always found slightly funny without ever quite being able to explain why.
They’d been best friends since secondary school, the friendship that had calcified into something so much more. They were like brothers in every sense.
Also, he looked almost exactly like the Cregan from the dream.
Same jaw. Same eyes. Same expression, the one that said I am listening to you and I find you exhausting.
Same, in other words, as he always looked well except his had slightly shorter hair.
“What?” Jace managed.
Cregan raised one eyebrow. “You’ve been staring at me for ten seconds with an expressionless face.”
“Sorry.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “I had a strange dream. I feel like I keep repeating these words over and over again.”
“You texted me at four in the morning.”
Jace went very still.
“I did?”
Cregan reached for his phone with the patience of a man who had long since resigned himself to the chaos of being Jace Velaryon’s closest friend. He scrolled briefly, then began reading aloud in the flat, informational tone of a news anchor delivering a weather report.
“‘Brother, imagine if we were medieval nobles.’”
“Oh, God.”
“‘You would have loved Winterfell.’”
“Cregan-”
“‘You were Lord of the North.’” He glanced up briefly. “I’m from Winterfell, Jace. I grew up in Winterfell. I know what Winterfell is.”
“Please stop-”
‘I miss Vermax.’
Cregan lowered the phone.
“I don’t know what Vermax is, if its not talking about your car.” he said.
Jace buried his face in both hands and made a sound that was less a word than a comprehensive statement.
“You were never meant to read those.”
“You sent them to me.”
“I was apparently not fully conscious at four in the morning. I don’t remember doing this at all.”
“That’s concerning.”
“Yes.”
“Are you okay?”
The question arrived without ceremony, Cregan always asked things he actually wanted to know, dropped into a conversation like a stone dropped into water, watching to see what it displaced. Jace hesitated for long enough that the silence became its own answer.
“Yeah,” he said. Then, quietly: “Not entirely.”
Cregan nodded. He didn’t push. This was something Jace had always valued about him, the Stark capacity to hold space without filling it.
“Tell me later,” Cregan said, and turned back to his laptop.
Mostly, Jace thought. He was mostly okay.
┈┈・ ✦ ・┈┈
You found him outside the business building at noon, materializing from the flow of students and your smile arrived before you did.
Jace felt the thing in his chest that had been clenched since 7 AM ease, slowly, like a hand opening. There was something about you that operated on him this way, had always operated on him this way, since the beginning. A quality of presence that grounded him, that made the world’s coordinates make sense again. He’d never found quite the right words for it. He’d stopped trying.
You slipped your hand into his without ceremony.
“Better than this morning?”
“A little.”
“Still thinking about your prince dream?”
He laughed, the sound freer than he expected. “Unfortunately.”
“You are such a nerd.”
“I was literally fighting a war.”
“You were dreaming about fighting a war.”
“Details.”
“Jacaerys Velaryon, if this dream becomes your entire personality, I want it on the record that I tried to prevent it-”
“Noted and rejected.”
You rolled your eyes with magnificent feeling. “I make no promises about what I tell your mother.”
Together you walked toward the café nearby. A small, overcrowded place called something Jace could never quite remember but it had had excellent coffee and terrible lighting and was perpetually full of students and professors who had clearly rather be somewhere else. The place that existed to absorb the ambient anxiety of a university and convert it, through caffeine, into something marginally more functional.
You had barely settled into your seats when a familiar voice arrived from approximately two tables away, belonging to someone who had apparently been watching for them.
“Well, if it isn’t my favorite nephew.”
Aegon Targaryen dropped into the empty chair beside Jace with the comfortable confidence of a man who owned, and this was literally true, approximately half the building they were sitting in. Twenty-six, blond, expensive, reliably catastrophic. His jacket probably cost more than Jace’s car maintenance for the year, and he wore it with the carelessness never once considering the cost of anything.
He was nothing like the monster from the dream. The dream-Aegon had been something Jace couldn’t fully bring himself to examine yet. Jealous and bitter and capable of terrible things. This Aegon was mostly known for throwing parties that became local legend and mysteriously managing to avoid all professional consequences for anything he did, ever. Jacaerys supposed that has something to do with his mother and his uncle Aemond keeping these things contained.
“To what do we owe the honor?” Jace asked.
Aegon’s attention had already moved to you.
“And how are you?”
“Good,” you said politely.
“Still putting up with him?”
You smiled. “Barely.”
“Excellent answer.”
Jace groaned. Aegon looked absolutely delighted.
“You’re blushing,” Aegon observed, with the tone of someone reporting a natural phenomenon.
“I’m not.”
“You absolutely are.”
You leaned over the table, and Jace recognized the look on your face immediately. The collaborative look. The look that meant you had identified an ally.
“He was calling me his beloved this morning.”
Aegon’s chair nearly lost him. He grabbed the table.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“In what context?”
“He kissed my hand. In the street. Before nine in the morning.”
Aegon looked at Jace the way someone looks at an archaeological discovery with facination, slightly appalled, deeply pleased. “This is the greatest thing that has ever happened.”
Jace contemplated his options. Leaving. Changing his name and moving to Braavos. Committing entirely to the persona of someone who had never been caught calling his girlfriend my beloved at eight forty-five on a Tuesday.
None of these were practical.
He reached for his coffee and said nothing, which Aegon correctly interpreted as total defeat.
┈┈・ ✦ ・┈┈
After Aegon eventually wandered off, ostensibly to a meeting, credibly to cause chaos somewhere else and so the café settled back into its ordinary rhythms. Students came and went. Espresso machines hissed. The ambient noise absorbed itself.
You and Jace remained at your table, and the laughter faded naturally, the way good laughter does, not dying but simply becoming something quieter.
He was staring into his coffee again.
You watched him for a moment.
“You never told me the whole dream, since it has you in a weird mindset today.” you said quietly.
His fingers tightened almost imperceptibly around the cup. He was aware of you looking at him, with your full attention, which had always been more like listening than looking, patient and genuine and without agenda.
“To put it simply, there was a war,” he said.
You didn’t ask him to explain. You waited.
“A civil war.” He looked up briefly, then back at the table. “A war over who would rule over Westeros. My mother was supposed to inherit as was the rightful heir to the throne but there were those who didn’t accept it. Didn’t accept her.”
“And you fought for her.”
“Of course.”
The images came without invitation, Dragonstone’s grey halls, the council table, the maps spreading the whole kingdom out before them like a wound. The feeling of duty that had lived in his chest since childhood, not as a burden but as a definition. This is who you are. This is what you do.
You reached across the table and took his hand.
He continued.
“I flew a dragon. I know this sounds no so scary but-” Despite everything, he heard the ghost of wonder in his own voice. “Vermax. He was- he was mine. Since I was a boy. He knew me.” The wonder curdled, softened into something heavier. “He died with me.”
Your thumb moved in a slow arc across his knuckles.
“The last thing I remember,” he said quietly, “was dying. Floating in the sea, after everything.” He paused.
“It was strange. It wasn’t- it wasn’t the way I would have imagined. It wasn’t terrifying.”
“What was it?”
He thought about it honestly.
“It was sad,” he said. “But calm.”
You were quiet for a moment. Then you reached up, and the gesture was so unexpected that he went still, your hand cupping his cheek, steady and warm, thumb tracing a line beneath his eye.
He leaned into it without thinking.
“I’m glad it was only a dream,” you said softly trying to calm his anxieties that he didn’t want to confess out loud.
“I’m glad you’re here.”
The tightness in his chest released, not all at once but in stages, like a knot worked loose over time. He turned his head slightly, pressing his lips briefly to your palm, and you let him, and neither of you made anything of it.
She’s right, he thought. Whatever that was. Whatever it meant.
He was here. Alive. With his family, with his best friend, with his girl.
Maybe that was enough. Maybe that was, actually, everything.
The afternoon passed.
Classes ended. The university slowly emptied like it did every day at dusk, students and professors releasing themselves back into the city like a pressure valve opening. The parking lot filled briefly with the usual chaos and then thinned.
“My mother wants you over more often,” Jace mentioned, as they walked toward the Porsche.
“Apparently she likes you.”
You brightened immediately. “Really?”
“She said so unprompted. First thing this morning.”
“Good.” You smiled with satisfaction. “I’m charming.”
Jace looked at you sideways. “You are deeply smug about this.”
“I’m charming,” you repeated, pleasantly.
He laughed. “Come over tonight?”
You looked at him, with that look you had, the one he’d never found a word for, the one that made him feel simultaneously seen and unsteady in the best possible way. Made him feel a bit giddy.
“I’d love to,” you said.
┈┈・ ✦ ・┈┈
The penthouse was unusually quiet when they arrived.
Rhaenyra was visible through the glass of her home office, phone tucked between her ear and shoulder, reading from a document with the focused intensity and it was clear that the woman needed a break from everything. Luke had evaporated somewhere. Joffrey was reportedly studying, a claim no one in the household had ever been successfully able to verify.
You and Jace settled at the dining table with laptops and scattered notes and the collective fiction of productivity.
For forty minutes, it was remarkably functional.
Jace had his economics module open. You were working through something, he didn’t ask, didn’t need to and the sound of quiet typing and the occasional turn of a page created a kind of companionable silence that he had always thought of as the specific luxury of being comfortable with someone. presence. You could simply be in it.
He was reading about capital allocation.
“Jace.”
He looked up.
“You’re getting lost in your mind again.”
“I’m not what are you talking about?” he said automatically. Then, because honesty was something he’d apparently committed to today: “I was thinking about- uhhh. Economics?”
“That is not better.”
“You look pretty,” he said simply.
The silence that followed had a distinct texture.
You looked at him for a long moment. Then you slowly, deliberately, closed your laptop.
“No,” you said.
“What?”
“You don’t get to say things like that when I’m trying to study.”
“I was simply making an observation.”
“You are impossible.”
He was very pleased with himself. He did not bother hiding it.
An hour later, the economics module had not progressed. The textbooks had been consolidated into a single pile and pushed to the far end of the table, a gesture that meant these exist and will eventually be addressed, which was as much as either of you were willing to commit to. A film had been agreed upon via negotiation.
Blankets appeared.
The overhead lights went off.
And somehow, as these things always somehow managed, you ended up curled against his chest on the enormous sectional, his arm around your waist, the film playing distantly while neither of you particularly watched it. Your breathing slowed first. His heartbeat was steady and familiar beneath your ear.
The city moved quietly outside the windows.
You didn’t remember falling asleep.
┈┈・ ✦ ・┈┈
The prince stood before you.
The wind came off the sea like a cold hand, whipping through his dark, curling hair, pressing his black riding coat against his frame. Behind him, Dragonstone rose in its glory against a steel-grey sky, all sharp towers and dark stone, magnificent and terrible, built by people who had never believed in half measures. The sea crashed against the rocks far below. Dark clouds gathered on the horizon with the patient, deliberate advance of something inevitable.
“No.”
Your voice came out broken.
“No, please.”
He looked at you the way he always looked at you as if you were the clearest thing in a world that had lately become very unclear, like looking at you was the one thing he could do without effort in a life that had demanded extraordinary effort from him since the moment he was old enough to understand what he was.
“I have to go.”
“You don’t,” you said, even though you knew it wasn’t true. Even though somewhere beneath the desperate present tense of the argument, the truer, older part of you already knew exactly what was coming. Already knew the shape of this farewell.
His hands found yours.
They were warm. Strong and real, so real that makes their loss so much more brutal than the loss of things you never fully believed in.
“You can stay,” you said. Your voice was steadier than you felt. “You can let someone else-”
“I cannot.” His voice was gentle but stern. He was stubborn and so if he made peace with this decisions, he wouldn’t have it any other way.
Tears burned behind your eyes. The fear inside you was almost unbearable and burning, it was twisted and layered, because you knew. You already knew. This was not a premonition, not a vague presentiment. It was knowledge, carried somewhere beneath language, beneath memory, in whatever part of you had been this person before.
You knew what awaited him at the Gullet.
Fire.
Water.
“You promised.” The words escaped before you could decide to say them.
His expression shifted. Something moved across it, grief, tenderness, the ache of a man who loves something too well to pretend it isn’t breaking.
“And I will keep that promise but this is a battle I must fight for both myself and my mother.”
He stepped closer, and you let him, and he pressed a kiss to your forehead so gently it barely qualified as a touch at all.
Then he rested his brow against yours.
His eyes never left yours.
“If I do not return- which I intend to,”
The world seemed to hold its breath.
“I will find you.”
A tear escaped. Traced the line of your cheek. He watched it with eyes that were very dark and very steady.
“In every lifetime if not this one. I promise.”
The words landed somewhere deep in you, somewhere wordless, somewhere older than the language you used to think with. A promise that had the weight of truth rather than intention.
You memorized his face. The curls. The strong jaw. The eyes, brown and earnest and alive, so alive.
He smiled.
Then he stepped away.
He turned toward the waiting dragon.
Toward the dark water below.
Toward a destiny that was also a death.
And all you could do was watch him leave.
┈┈・ ✦ ・┈┈
You woke with a gasp that tore itself from somewhere past your chest.
For several seconds, you could not find the room. Could not find yourself in it. There was only the dream...the cliffs, the wind, his forehead against yours, the sound of his footsteps retreating and the grief of it, which was specific and devastating and nothing at all like the vague emotional residue of ordinary sleep.
Tears burned behind your eyes. Your heart was pounding.
You pushed yourself upright. A blanket tangled around your legs. The room was dim, the film long since ended, the television showing a menu screen. Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, King’s Landing glittered in the full dark of night, the city’s lights reflected upward in a warm wash against the low clouds. Jace must have moved you to his room when you fell asleep.
The bedroom door opened.
Jace stepped in carrying two mugs, steam rising from both. He had apparently, at some point during your sleep, been productive.
The moment he saw your face, he froze.
“Hey.”
The concern in his voice was immediate, the shift from normal to careful happening in the space of a single syllable.
“What’s wrong?”
You didn’t answer. The words were somewhere on the way, but in the meantime your body had already decided what it needed, and what it needed was to close the distance between you and him as quickly as possible.
You stood.
Crossed the room.
The mugs barely survived. He caught them against the edge of the side table with an impressive reflex, setting them down quickly before his arms came around your waist, and you buried your face against the side of his neck, and breathed him in.
“Sweetheart?” Low and careful. His chin came to rest on top of your head.
You stayed there for a moment just letting the reality of him replace the dream of him. The warmth of him. The solidness.
Then you pulled back. Not far. Your forehead came to rest against his, which put you close enough to feel his breath and see the small crease of worry between his brows.
“I had a dream,” you said. It seems it was your turn to utter those words.
Something moved across his face. He went very still in the way that meant he was paying every variety of attention he had.
“What kind of dream?”
“I saw a prince.”
His breath caught. You felt it.
“I saw him leaving for a battle. He was going to fight-”
Your voice faltered, then steadied. “He knew he might not come back. And he said-” You stopped.
Jace’s arms tightened around you, almost involuntarily.
“He said he would find me,” you continued. “That if he didn’t return-” Your eyes met his, and something in your chest recognized something in his. “He would find me in every lifetime.”
Silence.
Complete, absolute silence.
Jace stared at you.
Because those were the exact words. Not a version of them, not a paraphrase but the exact promise, the exact phrasing, the exact scene, the stone of Dragonstone under grey skies and wind coming off the sea. He had lived it from one side and you had lived it from the other, and here you both were, in a penthouse above a city that did not have dragons, with the memory of them living in your bones.
His throat moved.
You smiled softly with tears still bright at the corners of your eyes. Your hand lifted, your fingers moving gently through his curls, the same gesture that felt simultaneously new and ancient.
“I don’t know what any of that means,” you said.
“Neither do I.”
“But if it was real-”
His forehead pressed more firmly against yours.
“You kept your promise,” you whispered.
He felt his throat close.
And for the first time since he had woken to the sound of an alarm clock and a bedroom that wasn’t the sea, he stopped wondering whether the dream had been real. He stopped wondering whether he was grieving something imagined or something true. He stopped needing to know.
Because you knew.
You had been there.
You rose onto your toes.
Your lips met his.
It was slow and gentle. He kissed you back like someone returning to something, like a navigator finding a landmark in familiar water.
Like he had been waiting centuries and perhaps his soul had waited for this moment. The moment to return to her.
┈┈・ ✦ ・┈┈
The knock was soft.
They both startled apart with the excellent reflexes of guilty consciences, then immediately demonstrated the dignity of two people pretending they hadn’t.
Jace cleared his throat. Rested his forehead against yours for one final second. His breath was unsteady in the best way.
Another knock.
“Jacaerys?”
Rhaenyra’s voice, measured, carrying through the door with the easy authority of a woman who managed board rooms and board members and the shenanigans of three sons as a single uninterrupted professional skill.
“Dinner is ready.” They heard the muffled voice of his mother.
Jace answered at a volume calibrated for normalcy “We’ll be there in a minute!”
A pause that had weight.
“Five minutes,” his mother’s voice returned, drier than a desert, and entirely aware of everything and perhaps making a wrong assumption of you two being alone in his room.
You laughed, pressing your face briefly against his shoulder to muffle it. He was already smiling.
“Your mother doesn’t trust you.”
“She absolutely does not.”
“And honestly?” You poked his chest. “I don’t blame her.”
“You wound me.”
“Good.” You pulled your hand back, but he caught it, quick and easy, and pressed a kiss to your knuckles again. The same gesture as that morning. The echo of it traveled through both of you clearly.
Your cheeks went pink.
He watched it happen with a feeling in his chest that was too large and too simple to require any examination at all.
There she is, he thought. My girl.
My princess.
He took your hand properly, fingers laced and led you toward the dining room.
┈┈・ ✦ ・┈┈
They heard the argument before they reached the dinner table.
Luke and Joffrey, seated across from each other in the arrangement that the family had collectively accepted as a flaw, were conducting a debate with the commitment of two people who had come to win.
“No, because you’re objectively wrong-”
“I’m objectively right-”
“You don’t even know what objectively means.”
“I literally do.”
“You used it wrong.”
Joffrey groaned with his whole body. “I hate this family.”
“You are this family,” Luke pointed out.
Joffrey considered this. “Exactly.”
Rhaenyra, at the head of the table, was pinching the bridge of her nose with annoyance. This was her normal and yet it was tiring.
The moment she saw you, her face entirely changed.
“There she is.”
You smiled. “Hi.”
She stood and pulled you into a hug with a warmth that was, Jace thought privately, rather more enthusiastic than his own homecoming greeting most mornings. “I was beginning to think my son had invented you.”
“Mum.”
“What? He never brings you over.”
“That’s his fault,” you said.
“Traitor,” Jace said.
“You’re literally my boyfriend.”
“Exactly.”
You smiled sweetly. “I’m allowed.”
Rhaenyra looked delighted in the specific way she allowed herself to look delighted when she was genuinely pleased, a rarity outside this apartment. Luke immediately leaned toward you.
“See? This is why she’s my favorite.”
“I’m sitting right here.”
“Unfortunately.”
Jace threw a bread roll at him.
Luke threw one back.
The war began immediately, and lasted approximately five seconds before Rhaenyra’s single sharp look ended it. She had a look for this. It was very effective.
“Sometimes I wonder,” she said, settling back into her chair and accepting a bread roll from the basket with the serenity of someone who had already mentally exited the building, “if I raised wolves.”
“That’s insulting,” Joffrey said.
Everyone looked at him.
The fourteen-year-old shrugged with the composure of someone who had thought this through. “Wolves are smarter.”
The silence held for two seconds before Luke’s expression cracked. Jace looked at the ceiling. Rhaenyra’s attempt at severity collapsed at its foundations.
You sat beside Jace with your hand warm against his under the table, and you were already laughing, and the sound of it filled the room the way laughter does when a room is already full of people who are glad to be there.
┈┈・ ✦ ・┈┈
Dinner found its rhythm.
Conversation moved in the easy, overlapping way it does with people who have logged enough hours together that they no longer need to manage it consciously. Luke complained about a group project with the vivid resentment of having decided the problem was everyone else.
Joffrey explained something about a game or a film or a historical period but the audience could not quite keep up, but that seemed to be part of the experience. Rhaenyra complained, with great economy, about company politics, and then told a story about a colleague that had everyone at the table paying full attention (It was Aemond who everytone is afraid of in their company).
You listened to all of it.
Jace, mostly, watched.
He had not expected this. Had woken this morning in the sea, or the memory of it. Had spent the drive to university with the dream still active in his body, had sat through lectures half-present, had carried the weight of Vermax’s last look in his chest all day like a stone.
And now.
He watched his mother smile at something you said. He watched Luke do the thing he did when he was actually amused, which was different from when he is pretending. Watched Joffrey explain something to you directly, having apparently determined that you were worth the effort, and watched your face do the thing it did when you were genuinely interested in something, slightly forward, slightly bright, entirely present.
You fit here. Not as a guest, not as someone being accommodated. As someone who belonged.
He thought of the dream again.
Remembered standing at the dragonpit of Dragonstone with his armor on and the dragon saddled and the sea grey behind him, and looking back at everything he was leaving, his mother, his brothers, you, the stone halls and the cold salt wind and the ordinary miracle of a morning that didn’t require a king’s son to die for it.
He had wondered, in those last seconds at Dragonstone, if he would ever see any of them again.
He had his answer now.
The realization settled in his chest quietly, without drama. Not a revelation, something more like a confirmation. A peace he hadn’t known he was looking for, finding him here, at a dinner table with a bread roll dent in the tablecloth and Joffrey currently holding forth on something no one else understood.
No war. No dragons. No succession. No battles. Just family. Just love.
Just this.
Halfway through dessert, Joffrey’s phone lit up.
“Oh!” He reached for it with the speed of receiving news they’d been waiting for. “Dad’s calling.”
Jace felt himself smile before the screen even showed Laenor’s face.
It appeared a moment later, that face, familiar and warm and slightly tanned by whatever sun was currently shining on whatever harbor on whatever coast he was sailing toward. Behind him, a bright blue sky suggested somewhere in Essos, probably. The man was perpetually in motion, perpetually somewhere else and yet found time for them. He was not their real father, but he might as well have been. After Harwin passed away, Rhaenyra had remarried Laenor as more of a deal since Laenor wasn’t interested in anything but he cared for Rhaenyra platonically and it seemed to have worked out great and that’s all that mattered.
“There are my favorite children.”
Luke snorted. “We’re your only children.”
“And yet somehow still my favorites.” Laenor’s gaze found you across the table, and his face smiled “There she is.”
You laughed. “Hello.”
“Good. Finally, someone sensible has arrived.”
“Hey!” Three voices, simultaneous.
Laenor continued as though he hadn’t heard. “How are you, darling?”
“I’m well, thank you.”
Jace groaned. “Why does everyone in my family like her more than me?”
“Because,” Laenor said, and the timing was beautiful, “she has manners.”
The table erupted. Even Rhaenyra, which was a significant achievement.
Laenor spent twenty minutes on the call, chatting about his route, trading insults with. He heard both Luke and Joffery’s rambling. He asked Rhaenyra about the board meeting she’d complained about, and listened to her answer. He asked you about your studies, and remembered something you’d mentioned three calls ago, and asked a follow-up question about it.
The man had walked into their lives years ago and simply decided, without announcement or conditions, that these were his sons. No performance of it. No documentation. Just- love, extended to fill the available space.
Dream Laenor had disappeared. The thought arrived gently, without bitterness. The dream-Laenor, who had been present mostly in his absence, who Jace had barely known, who had been lost before Jace could understand what losing someone meant. This version was here. This version showed up.
And Jace was, quietly and completely, grateful for that.
The call ended. The dessert finished. The evening moved toward its natural conclusion with the comfortable inevitability of all good evenings. Luke vanished in the direction of his room. Joffrey disappeared with a quantity of snacks that could feed a whole army. Rhaenyra retreated to finish what she’d started, she always had something she was finishing, this was simply who she was and the penthouse settled into quiet
Which left you and Jace, alone on the balcony.
┈┈・ ✦ ・┈┈
King’s Landing stretched below them without end.
The city was all light from up here, not the individual lights, not streets and windows and the moving points of cars, but the collective glow of it, the warmth of a few million people living their lives in proximity, translated upward into something that looked, from this height, almost like its own kind of fire.
A cool breeze moved through the dark, carrying the city’s particular nighttime mixture of warm pavement and distant food and the faint, improbable ghost of something floral from a rooftop garden somewhere below. It found its way into Jace’s curls and did what it wanted with them.
You stood beside him. Close enough that your shoulders touched.
Neither of you spoke. Neither of you needed to. The city was enough, for a while.
Then you broke the silence the way you often did when a thought entered your head.
“Do you think it was real?”
He didn’t ask what you meant.
The dreams. The prince and the princess. The battle. The promise made at the edge of the world on the morning of an ending. The specific weight of standing on Dragonstone and knowing.
“I don’t know,” he said.
You slipped your hand into his. Your fingers were cool from the night air. He closed his hand around yours.
“But it felt real,” you said.
“It did.”
Another silence, this one richer. Weighted, but not heavily, weighted the way a good book is heavy, in a way you want.
“If it was real…”
Jace looked toward you. The city’s light caught you from below, softening the angles, turning you luminous in the warm way of a portrait painted with care. The same thing he’d thought this morning returned, effortlessly, as though it had simply been waiting for the right lighting.
Radiant.
The same as the princess from the dream. The same, and also entirely herself.
“If it was real,” you continued, a smile finding the corner of your mouth, “I think she’d be happy.”
“Who?”
“The princess.”
Your fingers squeezed his.
“Because she got her prince back.”
Something moved in his chest and he felt a giddy sensation.
“And he got his princess,” he said quietly.
The smile you gave him in return was the specific, undone kind that he privately thought was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. He doubted this would change.
“You know,” he said, after a moment, “I’ve spent all day thinking about the battle.”
“The Gullet?”
“Yeah.” He looked down at the city. “The part where I died.”
You were quiet beside him.
“And?” you said, finally.
He looked back through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the penthouse.
His mother, visible in her office, signing something. The small movement of her hand showing her actions.
Luke in the hallway beyond, typing away at his phone aggressively with determinations of someone looking to win an argument even if he may be wrong.
Joffrey somewhere in his room planning a prank on his mother.
And all of it, all of this life, this ordinary, extraordinary life, glowing warm behind glass thirty floors above a city that had never known a dragon. His family.
“I think that prince would’ve liked this,” he said.
You followed his gaze.
You understood immediately. He could see it in the way your face softened, not with sadness but with tenderness that recognizes grief and holds it carefully.
A life without war. Without the weight of a crown.
Without sacrifice, the kind that swaps one beloved thing for another in an endless, devastating ledger.
Just family.
Just love.
Just peace.
You rested your head on his shoulder.
He turned his head and pressed a kiss to your hair, slow and quiet.
Neither of you saw it.
But just for a moment, a breath, almost a blink, the glass of the balcony door held a reflection that was not quite yours.
Two figures. Side by side. Dressed in black and red, the colours of a house that had once held the world.
Standing exactly as you were standing. Looking out at exactly what you were looking at.
Smiling.
At each other, and at this, and at everything that had managed, against all odds, to survive.
Then the image dissolved.
The glass held only the room behind it, warm and lit and full of the sound of Luke losing the argument.
summary: Lord Jason Lannister and Lady Johanna Westerling’s union proved fruitful, as they had three daughters and a son, even if it is reported that theirs was no marriage made out of love. The most remarkable out of their children was, obviously, the third borne daughter, who was known amongst the smallfolk as the Golden Princess and later on would have been remembered as the Lion Queen.
pairing: jacaerys velaryon x lannister!reader
word count: 6.4k
warnings: childhood friends to lovers trope, mention of slavery, common asoiaf violence (broken arm), swearing probably, just very sweet, reader is a crybaby (it's okay, so am i) but she'll get better, tyland and jason are kinda assholes, that's it!!
author's note: there better be at least five minutes of screentime for cregan this season or else i WILL crash out. rip jace my glorious curly haired king 👑 might come back to proof read this again later but that's a problem for future me... dividers from @uzmacchiato!
the ballad of the lion and the dragon
the lion | the dragon | the ballad
You’re six when you visit Tyrosh for the first time.
Your father, Lord Jason Lannister, is invited to the Archon of Tyrosh’s residence; it is not uncommon for your family to receive invites from all around the Known World, but it is rare for your father to accept them. Most of the time he either goes by himself or sends someone in his stead, but for some reason he has decided to bring you all this time. You all meaning you, your mother and your sisters, Cerelle and Tyshara.
“I heard your father is searching for a good knight who is willing to watch over you,” your septa tells you, merely days before your departure. “That’s why the arrangements for the voyage are taking so long.”
You are not a difficult child by any means. You behave, listen to what your nurses and septa tell you, and you do everything that they ask of you. It’s just that you have… a tendency.
Adults can be boring sometimes, and you’re always quiet, rarely interrupting their conversations. Oftentimes you find yourself involved with them simply because your father wants to show off his youngest daughter, the child who’s the perfect picture of how a Lannister should be. And oftentimes, if not always, you simply find yourself… just wandering off, once the attention isn't on you anymore.
You’re so quiet hardly anyone notices your disappearances, usually, but when someone does, it’s chaos. Your parents have a talent for always thinking about the worst scenarios possible, so, if you’re missing from a feast, then surely someone must have kidnapped you. Only for you to be found napping in the garden, curled on a bench like a cat not even ten minutes later.
You have yet to receive any harm from this tendency of yours, and when it’s between Casterly Rock’s walls, there’s hardly any risk of harm, since it’s well guarded and there’s hardly anything dangerous in there. Tyrosh, however…
“How many times does she have to sneak off before something bad happens?” Johanna always complains to her husband. “Yes, we are guarded, but who knows who could be hiding within these walls — there's men out there that would do anything for a single golden coin, and we surely don’t lack in that regard. When she sneaks off, nobody notices– and that’s because she’s quiet, and small, and easy to bore. But she is your daughter, and I wouldn’t be surprised if one day we couldn’t find her after a feast and a request for ransom is found in her stead.”
So the search for a sworn shield began. Jason is mostly looking for already experienced knights; it probably won’t be a hard job, they’ll just have to follow you around — plus, he pays good coin. If the knight really wants it, then he can surely act like a nursemaid for you.
After good research, Ser Morren Westerling is chosen. He’s one of your mother’s distant relatives, an old man in possession of just a title, who fought in the Stepstones and has won a good amount of turneys and melees since then for your father to repute him a good enough candidate.
Ser Morren is introduced to you the same day you're supposed to leave for Tyrosh. He's a man well in his fifties, with salt-and-pepper hair and beard, tanned skin and an ugly scar on his chin. He wears the newly made armour your father had commissioned for him and a red coat with silver linings, also a gift from your father. Clearly, he wants him to be recognisable.
He looks you up and down, then looks to your father. “I assume I’ll escort your three daughters?”
Your father shakes his head and gently pushes you in front of him. “No, just her. She's my youngest and tends to wander off. Be careful to follow her and make sure she doesn't get hurt or taken.”
The knight blinks. “Ah.”
Your father raises an eyebrow, amused. “‘Tis not what you were expecting?”
He shakes his head. “No, no, it is just… I think this is the most peaceful job I have ever taken.”
The Lord shrugs his shoulders, moving a hand up to smooth his cape. “Be good at it and you'll be allowed to stay in my castle as a guard for as long as you'll like. Or, depends, for as long as my daughter likes.” he turns his attention to you, kneeling down to your level. “This is Ser Westerling. He'll accompany you during our time in Tyrosh. Be good for him.”
He leaves you with a pinch on the nose and a kiss on the forehead, and you're now in the care of the nursemaid, Ser Westerling and under the watch of your sisters, who are more than happy to coo and play with you. They're way older than you, now almost two-and-ten each, but always ready to dress you up and make up stories for you to play with your dolls.
The carriage ride to Lannisport is quick compared to the weeks of traveling by sea that take to get to Tyrosh; you discover that you get terribly seasick, so most of your time on the boat consists in puking in a bucket and crying while being comforted by your parents, your sisters or the nursemaid. Your mother sings to you, even if seasick herself, while your father tries to console you by telling you all the gifts he'll buy you once you reach the Free Cities, which by now to you look like a mirage. But they aren't.
You arrive at Tyrosh at night, when you're already passed out from the nausea that's been plaguing you since the voyage started, and get welcomed by the Archon’s advisor, who shows you your chambers for your stay.
Tyrosh is as your father promised: shiny, full of merchants with marvelous products and crystalline sea waters. By day you explore the city with the Archon as chaperone, and your father makes sure to make up for the voyage by buying you double the things he had promised to get you. But Tyrosh has a big problem.
There are people in cages.
You don't understand why they would be there, but when your mother sees them, she makes sure to make you look the other way. That is, until you look the other way and you see something that catches your eye.
There are two little lion cubs. They're dirty, thin and a bit mangy, surrounded by mosquitos and other bugs, sleeping but looking dead. One cry from you is all your father needs to be on high alert, immediately turning around. “What is it, love?”
You just whine, finger moving to point at the little cubs. “Daddy, I want them.”
Your father raises an eyebrow, the Archon joining you all. “What might the matter be?”
“She wants those… kittens over there,” Jason replies, wincing, clearly not too fond of flea-infested lion cubs. “I'll buy you bigger and better kept lions back at Westeros if you want them, love. Those are dirty, malnourished and probably ill.”
The Archon nods. “Those are kept for arenas. Usually they're bought with the intention of mostly starving them for games with gladiators.”
You sob. Your mother glares at your father, who raises his hands in defeat. “Fine, fine, we'll take them.”
The cubs are a girl and a boy, so it is only fair you name them Jonquil and Florian, after the mythical lovers that Queen Alysanne and King Jaehaerys were once compared to. They're dirty and full of fleas, but your father has them cleaned by the staff of the palace so that their fur — the parts of it that isn't ruined, burned or fallen off — almost shines gold.
You try to play with them in the evenings, under the watchful gaze of Ser Warren, but they don't seem to trust you. They flinch back every time you approach and barely even accept the food the servants leave for them. They wince every time a loud noise is heard and hiss when anyone tries to pick them up, baring their teeth like wild animals — which, you guess, they are.
You start taking your meals in your chambers, only to take the beef out of your plate and bring it to the little cubs. Slowly, they start eating from the plate, soon enough from your hands — and before you even know it, they let you pet them. The boy purrs when you scratch his belly, while the girl meows happily when you caress her head and have her try on your sisters’ necklaces, which are small enough to fit on her neck.
As they get plumper and healthier, they start following you around, hiding under your skirts and rubbing against your legs, looking for scratches and treats, climbing your gown with their little nails and meowing loudly when you don't give them what they want. Your sisters make sure to keep away from them, as they are pretty skittish and the kittens are still pretty uneasy around people other than you, and the same thing goes for your mother. The only one who actually has the courage to speak up against the cubs is your father, who gently approaches you one day about leaving them behind — either reselling them or leaving them for the Archon to deal with.
The start of your crying is all it takes to make him relent. So, Florian and Jonquil go back to Westeros with all of you, with brand-new shiny golden collars around their necks, depicting the Lannister emblem on the medallion.
Not even two moons later, a feast in honor of Prince Jacaerys Velaryon’s seventh nameday is held.
You’ve never been to King’s Landing before — you’ve never really traveled that much since before this summer, actually. It’s just that you’re finally old enough for your parents to bring you along wherever they go. And, of course, wherever you go, Florian and Jonquil follow.
They’re now four moons old — at least you think, by what the vendor had told your father — and they are growing quickly. They both still have some belly fat and are always looking for cuddles, and mainly for that, they are your best companions during the day and night.
They sneak under the covers of your bed at night and follow you during the day; they play with you, attend lessons with you — usually sleeping or tearing down the drapes — and they even sit by your feet at the table during breakfast, lunch and supper. They have now become your favorite and most loyal companions, and the same thing can be said for Ser Warren, who never lets out so much as a cough as he silently follows you throughout the day, never complaining nor saying anything against you. So it is only fair they all follow you on the journey to the Crownlands.
The voyage is less burdening than the one to the Free Cities, as it is completely done by carriage, and you are happy to babble all you know about the Capital to Ser Warren, who only pretends to be annoyed by it, you're sure. You repute yourself pretty good at reading people, and you just know he’s actually interested in all the facts you know.
You are welcomed by your uncle Tyland, who’s Master of Coin in King Viserys’ Small Council. You jump into his arms before your parents can stop you, and he gleefully catches you, holding you tight. “Ooh, look at you! How you have grown, my girl!”
You giggle, hiding your face in his shoulder. “Hi, uncle Ty,”
Tywin is your father’s brother and your favorite uncle — not that you have any other than him. All their brothers died before you were born, so even if they often have some discrepancies, they hold each other deeply close to the heart. Your uncle always showers you and your sisters with gifts, cherishing the little time you spend together, as he has no kids of his own and probably never will. That being said, every occasion is the right one to dote on you three.
The days at the Red Keep are mostly spent in the gardens with Florian and Jonquil, under the watchful eyes of your mother and the other ladies of the court, occupied in gossiping and drinking tea as their husbands go on hunts and talk about politics and discuss business. Most of the ladies are with their children too, some younger, some older, all playing together — princes included. As the Queen has made it clear to your father that she doesn’t want your cubs anywhere near her, her family or her entourage, Jonquil and Florian are let out of the room specifically organised for them only for walks in the hill behind the Castle.
Queen Alicent and Princess Rhaenyra are never at the small parties on the same days — usually when one is present the other is absent, a thing the ladies have noticed with particular amusement, speculating about the hate going on between the two.
You mostly keep to yourself, too shy to approach the other kids, and often tend to the flowers in the gardens, teaching Ser Westerling the meaning and provenience of each one like he’s a particularly interested botanist and not a guard tied to your side by a contract. That is, until one day you are brutally and unmannerly interrupted by the Prince himself.
Prince Jacaerys is the main reason your family is in King’s Landing, and also in line to the Iron Throne as his mother’s heir. He is rowdy and loud, like children his age tend to be, so it’s not a new thing to see him covered in mud from head to toe. He has his hands behind his back, blushing furiously under your confused gaze, as Ser Warren raises an eyebrow, glaring in an unamused way at him. The children snickering and whispering behind the Prince, combined with how red he is and the flowers the knight can see he holds behind his back, give away his intentions immediately.
“I– I…” the Prince stumbles upon his words, “W– would you like to be my princess in the game?” At this, he holds out the flowers he has clearly just ripped from the garden, some still with dirt and roots attached. You gasp, and being the lover of knight tales as you are, of course you accept, cheeks rosy. You take his flowers and let him drag you to the ‘fortress’ you’ll be held prisoner at — a big bench at the center of the garden — where the ‘dragons’ — meaning two boys you don’t even know the names of — try to fight off the ‘knights’ — also known as princes Jacaerys and Lucerys Velaryon. Three girls sit far across from you, huffing and puffing, probably angry that they weren’t asked to be the princess.
You sit in your fortress-bench, counting your flowers’ petals and humming songs as the boys fight in the mud with wood swords, screaming and insulting each other. Your mother, Princess Rhaenyra and the other ladies watch from their table, chuckling between themselves — especially when it’s Lucerys who manages to get out of the scuffle first, condemning his brother to fight the other two boys alone, taking your hand in his and declaring eternal love and protection for you.
Rhaenyra starts laughing uncontrollably, looking at your amused mother. “Looks like the children get along!” she muses. That is until Jacaerys manages to free himself from the hold of the other two kids and smacks his brother as hard as he can in the head.
“I was supposed to save her!” he screams, glaring at his brother, who smacks back. “Well, then you should have fought harder!”
You dramatically gasp, sensitive and easy to scare, and all it takes is a whimper from your mouth for Ser Warren to come to the rescue, taking you by the armpits and bringing you to your mother as you start crying while the boys continue fighting. Johanna coos and wipes your tears, chuckling a bit to herself. “My girl, there’s nothing to cry for.”
Princess Rhaenyra has gone to scold her boys, demanding an apology on your behalf; Lucerys sheepishly asks sorry, while his brother — cheeks all red — gets on his tippy toes and leaves a wet, awkward kiss on your cheek. His mother gasps. “Jacaerys!” she hisses. “That is no proper way to behave! Aren’t you ashamed?”
Your mother laughs it off, as you’re as red as a tomato, giggling to yourself and fiddling with the velvet of your gown, staring at the kid — completely enamored . “That is no problem, my Princess; she doesn't seem to be bothered by any means.”
A kiss on the cheek is all it takes for you to glue yourself to Jacaerys’ side for the days that come, clammy hands usually tied together, a smile on your face and a pout on his. The Prince is quite spoiled and grumpy, you’ve discovered in the time you spend together, but he is also pretty funny — especially when he plays pretend as King Jaehaerys and insists on you being Queen Alysanne.
So, when one day he invites you to the training yard to see his sword skills, you can’t find it in yourself to say no — because, as your mother says, you may have a tiny, itsy bitsy crush on him. It’s probably the whole knight thing that has swooned you, because you love knights and the stories told about them.
Ser Warren grumpily agrees to accompany you, not before openly stating his dislike for him. “I just wouldn’t want you to get your hopes up, my Lady,” he says, a bit gruff. “Boys at this age tend to be a little… inconsiderate of a lady’s feelings.”
You don’t even seem to hear him, little feet scrambling to get a good look at the knights down in the training yard, looking for Jacaerys. There are a few other ladies on the balcony, swooning over the actual knights, giggling and blushing while whispering to each other. You take a good look at Ser Harwin, the captain of the City Watch, and even if you’re barely six summers old and definitely too young for him, you get them. Absent-mindedly, you hope that Jacaerys will look like him when he grows up.
“So, it is true,” Ser Morren murmurs, leaning over the railing to get a better look, talking to himself — clearly not thinking you can hear him. “Good ol’ Breakbones does look like the brat. Seven Hells,”
“Ser Morren,” you tug at his cloak, “could you pick me up? I can’t see really well from here.”
He complies, holding you steady against him but making sure you can see the training yard properly. You can see Jacaerys and Lucerys holding up wood swords against two other boys with platinum hair — the other princes, you guess — as they spar, mud coating their boots while the Lord Commander yells corrections and tips on how to perfect their stance and combat skills.
And while Lucerys exits his battle in triumph, holding the edge of his sword to Prince Aegon’s neck while unashamedly turning to look at the ladies — his brother is not so lucky.
Jacaerys lands in the mud on his side as his arm makes a loud crack, screaming out while Prince Aemond’s grin quickly twists into something more grim. You gasp, Ser Morren immediately ripping you away from the sight as the knights go and hover around the Prince, who’s whimpering, to examine the arm resting in an unnatural position. In the distance, as your guard drags you away, you hear someone call for a maester.
While this situation doesn’t present any actual real danger for you, Ser Morren knows you well enough by now. You’re a sensitive girl — you once cried because you accidentally stepped on a bug — and if his instinct is right, what he fears most might come any time now–
You burst out crying. Ah, there it is. At least you’re out of earshot from the princes — he wouldn’t want them to start picking on you and calling you a crybaby. He tries to ignore your gut wrenching sobs as he focuses on just finding your mother.
Once Lady Lannister is found — surrounded by the other ladies of the court, of course, who coo sadly at you and glare at your protector like he’s the reason you’re bawling your eyes out — she shushes you pretty easily, holding you close to her breast and patting your back soothingly. “Oh, my sweet, sweet girl, whatever has happened to make you so sad?”
Not even a moment passes from when Ser Morren finishes telling her what happened to when the ladies start to gossip. “Oh, have you heard of what happened just yesterday in the Dragonpit? Prince Aemond must still hold a grudge against the princes.”
What happened, you guess, must be one of their famous squabbles. They’re pretty common between Queen Alycent and Princess Rhaenyra’s children, you’ve found out. “That is in no way a sufficient reason to do such a thing– while Prince Aemond is one-and-ten, Prince Jacaerys is yet to turn seven summers old! It seems clear to me who’s in the wrong, don’t you think so, ladies?”
The back and forth between the gossiping courtiers goes on until your mother spots Princess Rhaenyra behind the colonnade that heads into the garden and quickly shuts her company up with a single, terrifying glare, petting your hair as you let out soft whimpers, still a bit shook from the earlier experience.
Princess Rhaenyra approaches the group and waves a hand in the air when some of the ladies are about to get up and bow, smiling sweetly at your mother– actually, smiling sweetly at you. “Hello,” she hums softly, trying not to scare you. “My son Jacaerys is asking about you. Would you like to come with me? He’s fine now.” she holds out a hand, offering it to you.
You look hesitantly at your mother, who nods, then hesitantly hop off her lap and take the Princess’ hand, brushing sheepishly at your dress with your other hand as she guides you into the castle, Ser Morren dutifully right behind you until Rhaenyra’s personal guard takes over.
Princess Rhaenyra’s hand is warm but firm and she looks a little disheveled — and you wonder if she spent the last thirty minutes yelling at the servants and knights like your father does when you or your sisters get hurt. “He broke his arm,” she tells you quietly, like she’s talking to a babe, “but the maester has already fixed him up. He seemed more worried about the fact that you saw him defeated than about the fracture.”
Your lips tremble, and you look at her with your big, sad eyes. “I don’t care that he didn’t win,” you whine, “I’m sad because he got hurt, and I don’t want him to hurt.”
She looks endeared. “Well, then, you tell him that.”
Jacaerys is laying on his bed when his mother opens the door to his room, Lucerys’ sitting by his bedside, moping, as the maester scolds him half-heartedly about the dangers of sparring in the mud-covered surface of the training yard. “I’ll make sure to have a word with Ser Harwin,” he seethes, “oh, yes, he’ll have to hear me because there’s no–”
“Maester Gylde,” Rhaenyra interrupts, spooking him out of his mind and bringing Jacaerys out of his stupor; he grins embarrassedly when he notices you. “Please, let the boy off his shackles. Having to sleep with that thing on his arm for the next three weeks is going to be enough.”
With that thing, she’s referencing the tight bandage wrapping around Jacaerys’ arm, bulging with a wooden log to keep the bone from fixing crooked. All it takes you is one look at it and bam– you’re ugly crying again.
It surprises both Rhaenyra and the princes, who all startle when you start sobbing. Panicked, Rhaenyra tries to shush you by taking you in her arms and cooing softly, but it is all for naught as every time she manages to wipe away your tears, more come out as a replacement — and suddenly she understands why your personal guard always takes you to your mother as soon as you start to tear up, instead of trying to console you himself.
“‘Tis nothing!” Jace raises his arm, hiding a wince of pain, “Look! I am perfectly fine!”
His mother gently sits you on the bed covers, heart swelling at the thoughtfulness of her son, who still puts your well-being first despite his own injury. With his good arm, Jacaerys drags you in his arms by your sleeve, cheeks red but not nearly as puffy as yours. “Why do you always have to cry about everything?” He grumbles as you smear tears and snot over his doublet. “‘Twas nothing serious! I’d never let Aemond seriously hurt me, and you should know that a true knight never whines about pain and whatnot."
Actually he just let his uncle hurt him, and he’s still very far from being a true knight, but that's not his concern right now. His concern is making you stop crying as soon as possible — before you drown in your own tears, at least. “But your arm’s broken!” You whine, hands gripping the front of his doublet as you pull him to and away from you like you’re trying to knock some sense into him.
“It will heal,” he puffs his chest, feigning offense, “are you trying to tell me that I am not a true knight — and that my injury might last forever?”
For a moment, you stop crying — just to look him in the eye. Then, you pull at his hair swiftly, and get off the bed with an incredulous huff. “A true knight never thinks of a lady’s tears as a selfish whim!” You stutter, lips still trembling — he has no idea where you’ve read that, nor where you got the idea that he was trying to do that, but he’s too stunned by the way you pulled on his strands to say anything. “I’ll find somewhere else to dump my tears! Bye!”
Before leaving, you furiously bow to the Princess, then let the door slam closed behind you — at least, as slammed as it can be by the force of a six-year-old. Rhaenyra blinks. “…Did she really do that?”
Lucerys, pleased, nods happily. “She did.”
Worried, Jace frowns. “Does she even know her way back to the gardens?”
You don’t. He finds you two hours later, crouched in a fetal position in one of the corners of the castle, crying and talking to a little flower that sprouted between the cracks of the rocky pavement. You’re babbling to the plant like it owes you a reply, lower lip sucked in your mouth when you muffle a sob, and Jace doesn’t even know if you’re still crying because of him or because you can’t find your way back to your mother.
Without saying anything, he pokes you over your shoulder, smiling when you turn to glance at him, and takes your hand in his without too many questions. You’re back in the gardens in less than five minutes, and you throw yourself at your mother’s gowns, breath uneven. Ser Westerling looks at the Prince like he wants to skin him alive, but other than that, no harm is done.
Later on, the seamstress has to make certain alterations to his nameday chemise and doublet to make sure that the whole bandage, wooden log included, properly fits so that at least it’s not completely clear to anyone who spares a look at him that his arm is broken. The day of the feast is close, and his parents are all but happy with the fact that he’ll spend it with one of his limbs basically useless, but it is what it is.
When his nameday finally rolls around, you’ve already forgotten all about your little spat, and spend all morning in your mother’s chambers with the latter and your sisters, who coo and swoon at the copious amount of jewels that Johanna has brought here from Casterly Rock for the occasion. Florian and Jonquil purr at your feet as your mother continuously swaps jewels and makes you try on new necklaces, rings and earrings, finally settling on golden ornaments decorated with rubies, so shiny that they make you giggle once you finally see yourself in the mirror.
You twirl in your pink dress, happy as ever, as your sisters still stress about their clothes in the background. While this may be just a feast to you, for them it’s the possibility to scour the various lords and their sons, as in a few years they’ll be reaching the age where the women of your family begin to look for a husband.
You play with Florian and Jonquil until the time for the feast to start comes, and throttle your way to the gardens right in front of your mother, Cerelle and Tyshara — your uncle is already there, discussing hushedly with your father, who lights up when he sees you. As you always do, you throw yourself in his arms, and he catches you without a hitch, settling you over his hip. “You’re getting too old for this,” he teases, poking your stomach as you squeal. “Just another nameday, and you’ll have to start acting like a proper lady.”
”I am a proper lady!” You insist, nudging him with the back of your hand, “Look! Mommy gave me one of her kissy rings and let me wear her sparkly things!”
He guesses that the kissy rings are the ones people are supposed to kiss over her hand in greeting, and just to play along he kisses the back of your hand. “A proper lady calls her parents father and mother, doesn’t jump to be picked up, doesn’t have two lion cubs as pets…”
But you’re already not listening anymore, playing with his hair to make a braid as you babble about your sisters fighting for a collier earlier, then nudging at his earring and asking why it is devious of any sparkling qualities. Your uncle laughs, but he does not look as amused as he usually is. “You’ve made acquaintances with the Prince, niece, have you not?”
You frown, then look at your father. “Daddy, what does ack-uain-tans mean?”
”Acquaintance, darling,” he corrects you, scowling at his brother. “Uncle Ty’s asking if you’ve become friends with Prince Jacaerys.”
Your eyes light up, and you clap your hands excitedly. “Yes! He crowned me Queen of Love and Beauty at the tourney, and he said that we’re going to get married one day.” The tourney where he forced his younger brother to be the horse, by the way. A very attendable tourney, if you were to ask him.
Your father pales a bit, but not as much as your uncle, who has to hide a nervous chuckle in his fist — something that could easily be passed off as children playing dress up as adults seems to trouble him deeply. “Pardon– married? Aren’t you too young for that?”
”I am now,” you say sagely, “but I won’t be soon enough, and then we’ll get married, and we’ll live in a big castle, even bigger than Cas-ter-ly Rock, and we’ll have lots of babies-“
”Yes, yes, that’s enough for today, have a little pity on your father’s poor heart,” Jason interrupts, coughing like just the thought is enough for him to feel ill. You coo and press a wet, soundly kiss to his cheek, “Noo, daddy, don’t feel bad, I’ll still love you!”
Some of the courtiers are staring by now, chuckling with no real malice as Lord Jason Lannister gets consoled by his own brat of a daughter, and he pats your back, trying to loosen your hold on his neck. “Yes, yes, I know, honey– listen, Uncle Ty wanted to ask you something.” He then sends a pointed look to his brother, almost glaring at him.
Tyland coughs again. “Prince Jacaerys, in retrospect, is not the most ideal friend you could make in this court,” he nudges toward the other end of the gardens, where Jace’s uncles — Aegon and Aemond — stand, seemingly having a conversation with other boys their age. The oldest has a wine goblet in his hand, and from the redness of his cheeks, it doesn’t take a fortune teller to confidently say that he’s probably already drunk. “Queen Alicent’s kids, however, will surely pay off one day.”
You frown at way-too-old Aegon and cruel, mean Aemond, and you can’t help but think that while it was the latter who broke Jace’s arm, the oldest didn’t do anything to stop him. Besides, in your eyes, he’s far too scary to even approach, as he’s way much taller than you and has a constant snarl on his face. “They’re old, uncle,” you say in the end — because that's what an eleven and thirteen year old look to you — tightening your hold on your father for support. “And mean. They pick on Jacaerys and Lucerys, and even their little brother Joffrey. And he’s a babe.” you add that with a little indignant huff, like you can’t even imagine how someone could bully babes.
And it is true — whenever they are around, it’s unbearable. You wish you could just play with little Joff in peace while also hoping to give a break to the Princess and various nursemaids, but no. They always have to be around, tormenting his older brothers, and once they even tried to snatch the babe from your arms before your cries alerted Ser Warren — who promptly dragged the boys by their cuffs to meet their sister Rhaenyra, who scolded them for half an hour about their unrighteous treatment of their baby nephew and how such behaviour would not be tolerated, lest they wished to follow their younger brother Daeron to Oldtown.
(Of course, their behaviour never really stopped, because as soon as Queen Alicent was made aware of the situation, she made sure to always be overlooking when her sons pestered their nephews so that nobody would dare utter a word. At least they mostly left you and Joffrey alone for now, and you were free to continue playing house with him under the careful watch of Ser Westerling.)
Tyland huffs. “Well, you see– not everything revolves around what you’d like to do and people you actually enjoy, and maybe it would be best if you found out sooner rather than later.”
“Tyland,” Jason warns, “now you’re going too far. She’ll deal with that when she’s older.”
His twin clicks his jaw, bowing his head slightly. “However you wish, brother.” He disappears in the crowd soon after without saying goodbye, and your mother and your sisters join you as soon as you lose sight of him. “Husband,” Johanna greets, tense, “what was that about?”
Your father pats your back reassuringly as you rest your cheek on his shoulder, “Nothing,” he assures her, even if his irritation is clear as day to someone who’s been married to him for a decade and a half, “it’s just… you know how Tyland is. It seems the Royal Court has just worsened his constant concerns and scheming.”
A lot of whispering later, your mother winces the slightest bit. “We’ll continue this conversation later,” she hisses to her husband as you play with the golden accents of his tunic, “however, you cannot avoid admitting that it is, let’s say… peculiar for Targaryens to have dark hair.”
“‘Tis not the place nor the time to speak about that,” your father hisses in response as your sisters feign particular interest towards the flower beds, “I don’t want to hear another word about any of this — understood?”
It’s not a secret that your parents’ union was not one born from love, and even if in the years they have built a good relationship based on mutual respect and trust, your father never refrains from reminding her to stay in her place — that is, being his wife. You look at your mother, at the hidden resentment in her eyes that she always holds for your father, and can’t help but think that you never want to end up with a man like your father — one who even after three children still hasn’t properly warmed up to his wife.
Jason Lannister is a good father, when he wants to be — which, fortunately, is often. Unfortunately, he rarely tries to be a good husband.
Jacaerys is welcomed warmly by the guests of the feast — and most importantly, he’s accompanied by his grandsire. You curtsy like your septa and sisters taught you to, even if your balance is still not the best, and soon enough the gathering continues without a hitch — just with King Viserys I strolling around like this isn’t just a child’s nameday celebration, but a full-on political event. You guess that after all, it is one of his heirs that just turned eight.
Even so, for children like you, pretenses are easy to forget: soon enough, Jace is poking your shoulder and pointing to the far end of the courtyard, where other children are already playing, and takes your hand to drag you with him.
As they watch you go play with the Prince, Tyland whispers to your father, “You must understand, this is not the best friendship she could form.”
Jason laughs. “One with a prince? Tyland, she’s the same child who befriended wild lions.”
His twin’s voice is low, so that Jason might be the only one who hears, when he says, “Lions and royal bastards are two very different things.”
Your father’s spine straightens. “No more of this, Tyland, you hear me?” he hisses. “Royal blood is royal blood. And we’re not going to get our tongues cut just because you can’t bear to see children play.”
Tyland shakes his head, “Children,” he spits, “when are princelings and young ladies ever considered to be just that?”
Summary: Having studied Valyrian history and sorcery, you perform a ritual to save Jace's life after the battle of Gullet, except he's not quite who he used to be after he comes back from death's doorstep.
a/n: Reader is Daemon's daughter but it's not indicated from which marriage, take your pick.
The sea was grey that morning, mirroring the stone of Dragonstone itself. You stood at the window of your chamber, a heavy tome resting against your chest, its pages filled with script so old the ink had begun to flake away like dried blood. Below, the waves crashed against the volcanic rock, and high above, the clouds swirled in a slow, mournful dance. The whole world seemed to be holding its breath, waiting for a death that had not yet come.
Jacaerys had been lying in the maester's chamber for eight days.
You had counted each one. Eight days since Baela had landed Moondancer on the cliffs, screaming for help, her face streaked with salt and soot and grief. Eight days since they had carried his body, his body, not him, you had refused to think of it as him, from the dragon's back, wrapped in a cloak soaked through with seawater and blood. The Battle of the Gullet had been a victory, they said, but it did not feel like one. It felt like the world had been cracked open, and all the light was spilling out.
You remembered the sight of him when they brought him in. His face had been so pale it was nearly grey, his lips bloodless, his dark hair matted with salt and gore. Three arrows had struck him. One in the shoulder, one in the side, and the third, the one that made the maesters exchange those terrible, silent looks, lodged in his neck, just above the collarbone, so close to the great vessels that carried life through the body that even the most experienced of them had hesitated before touching it.
He had not drowned, they said, because he had been found clinging to a piece of driftwood, his fingers locked around it so tightly they had to pry them loose. Vermax had not been so fortunate. The young dragon had crashed into the waves, pierced by bolts and arrows, and the sea had taken him. Jace would have felt that, you knew. Even bleeding out into the water, he would have felt his dragon die.
You had not wept when they told you. You had stood very still, your hands clasped in front of you, and you had listened, and then you had gone to your chamber and opened the oldest book you possessed and begun to read.
Now, eight days later, you had read everything. Every scrap of text, every fragment of lore, every whispered rumor that had ever been committed to parchment about the old Valyrian ways. You had read until your eyes burned and your head ached and the words blurred together like blood in water. And you had found something.
The accounts of King Maegor the Cruel were not pleasant reading. His reign was a litany of atrocities, his name a curse upon the lips of even the most loyal Targaryen historians. But buried within the chronicles of his brutality was a single, strange thread: the story of his survival after the Trial of Seven. Maegor had fallen in combat, struck down by blows that should have killed him. He had lain insensible for nearly a moon's turn, his wounds festering, his body failing. The maesters had given him up for dead. And then, somehow, he had risen. He had opened his eyes, and he had stood, and he had walked out of that sickroom with a fury that would consume the realm.
The official histories attributed this to the will of the gods or the strength of his dragon blood, but you had found other writings. Theories scrawled in the margins of old texts, penned by maesters too afraid to speak openly. They pointed to Tyanna of Pentos, Maegor's wife. She had been rumored to practice dark arts, blood magic, the forbidden sorceries of the East. And there were those who believed that when Maegor lay dying, Tyanna had not healed him. She had remade him. She had poured life into him through sacrifice, through the transfer of vital essence, through a ritual that bound flesh to will and pulled a soul back from the abyss. Some texts even dared to name what he had become: a fire wight, a creature of flame, animated not by the natural processes of the body but by the burning power of blood and magic.
It was, the most cautious of the writers had noted, remarkably similar to the tales told by the red priests of R'hllor in far-off Asshai and Volantis. Their god could raise the dead, they claimed, could breathe fire back into cold lungs and set hearts beating again. But the price was always blood. Always life. Always a piece of the one who performed the working.
You had closed that book with trembling hands and gone to find your father.
Daemon Targaryen had returned to Dragonstone three days prior, summoned by a raven from your stepmother. Rhaenyra had called him back from Harrenhal not to mourn, but to act. The war had paused for no grief, and the Queen needed her husband's fire and his ruthlessness and his terrible, unwavering certainty. You had watched him arrive on Caraxes, the Blood Wyrm's crimson scales a slash of violent color against the grey sky, and you had seen the way his face had tightened when they told him about Jace.
Now, he stood in your chamber, the door closed behind him, turning the pages of your book with the same hands that had wielded Dark Sister for decades. His expression was unreadable.
"This is dangerous knowledge," he said at last. "Where did you find it?"
"Here," you said. "In the library. In the vaults below. Dragonstone is old, father." You swallowed hard. "Tyanna was not the only one who knew these rites. The Valyrians practiced blood magic for thousands of years. They used it to bind their dragons, to shape the very stone of their towers. This is just…another application."
Daemon looked at you, and for a moment you saw something flicker in his gaze. Pride, perhaps, or recognition. You were his daughter, after all, no matter which marriage had produced you. You had his blood in your veins, his fire, his refusal to accept the world as it was when you could bend it to your will instead.
"You want to do this for the boy," he said.
"He is my betrothed," you said, and your voice cracked on the word despite your best efforts. "He has been my betrothed since I was old enough to understand what the word meant. I was meant to marry him, father. I was meant to stand beside him when he took the throne. I was meant to…" You stopped, pressing your lips together, forcing the tears back. You would not weep. Not yet. Not while there was still something you could do.
Daemon was silent for a long moment. Then he closed the book and set it aside.
"The maesters believe he will die," he said. "They will not say it to Rhaenyra's face, they value their heads too much for that, but they have stopped trying to remove the arrow from his neck. They say it is too close to the artery. They say he has lost too much blood. They say even if he wakes, the wound will fester and poison him from within." His jaw tightened. "He is dying, daughter. Slowly but surely. If you do nothing, he will be dead anyway."
"Then I have to try," you said.
"Yes," Daemon agreed, and there was something almost gentle in his voice, something you had not heard from him in a very long time. "You do. And I will help you."
"Rhaenyra..."
"Rhaenyra must not know." Daemon's voice hardened. "She is already half-mad with grief. If she knew what we were attempting, she would forbid it. Or she would hope too much, and the disappointment would destroy her if you failed. No. This stays between us. I will stand guard outside the door. I will make certain no one disturbs you. Whatever you need, candles, herbs, a blade, I shall provide it. The rest is up to you."
You nodded, your heart beating so fast you could feel it in your throat. "Tonight," you said. "It has to be tonight. The maesters say the hour just before dawn is the most dangerous. If he survives until morning, it will be a miracle. I need to act before then."
Daemon reached out and put his firm hand on your shoulder. "You are my daughter," he said. "You have my blood. Whatever you need to do, do it without hesitation. Do it without doubt. The magic will know if your will wavers."
"I won't waver," you said.
He looked at you for a long moment, and then he nodded. "I know you won't."
The hour was late when you made your way to the chamber where Jacaerys lay. The castle was quiet, the servants and guards moving through the corridors like ghosts, their footsteps muffled by the weight of impending tragedy. Everyone knew. Everyone was waiting. The heir to the heir, the bright young prince who had flown to the Gullet with fire in his heart, was slipping away, and there was nothing anyone could do.
Except you. You could do something. You would do something.
Daemon walked beside you, a silent shadow in black and red. When you reached the door to Jace's chamber, he stopped and turned to face you.
"I will be here," he said quietly. "No one will enter until you open this door from the inside. Take as long as you need."
You nodded, not trusting your voice, and pushed open the heavy wooden door.
The room was dim, lit only by a single candle on the bedside table and the faint glow of the hearth fire. The windows were shuttered against the night air, and the scent of medicinal herbs hung thick in the air: poultices and tinctures and the smell of boiling wine used to cleanse wounds. But underneath it all was the smell of blood, old and new, and the sickly-sweet undertone of a body fighting a losing battle against death.
Jacaerys lay on the bed, and the sight of him made your heart clench like a fist.
He was so still. Jacaerys, who had always been in motion, always talking, always planning, always reaching for the next thing, lay utterly motionless beneath the furs. His face was ashen, his cheeks sunken, dark circles bruising the skin beneath his eyes. His lips were cracked and dry, parted slightly, and his breathing was so shallow you had to watch his chest for a long moment to be sure it was still moving. The arrow had been removed from his shoulder and the one from his side had been cut out, the wounds stitched and bandaged. But the third arrow, the one in his neck, was still there. The maesters had cut the shaft short, leaving only a few inches protruding from the swollen, angry flesh, but they had not dared to remove the head. It was lodged against something vital, and any attempt to pull it free would tear the vessel and kill him in moments.
You stood beside the bed for a long time, just looking at him. Remembering.
You remembered the first time you had met him, when you were both children, before you understood what betrothal meant. He had been solemn and serious even then, trying so hard to be worthy of the inheritance that had fallen to him. You had thought him stuffy at first, too concerned with duty and honor to be any fun. But then he had smiled at you, a quick, surprised smile, and you had seen the boy beneath the prince, and something had shifted in your heart.
You remembered the day your dragon died. The Battle of Rook's Rest. The sky had been full of fire and screaming, and you had been on your dragon's back, trying to stay alive, trying to fight, trying to do something, anything, to help. And then Rhaenys had fallen. Meleys had plunged from the sky in a tangle of scarlet wings, and Vhagar had turned. The ancient she-dragon had fixed her terrible eyes on you, and Aemond's voice had echoed across the battlefield, shouting something you could not hear over the roar of wind and flame. He had wanted to take you, you learned later. A prize. A hostage. A trophy to hang on his wall. But your dragon had fled, faster than Vhagar could follow, and had carried you all the way back to Dragonstone before succumbing to her wounds. She had died on the beach, her great head resting on sand, her eyes fixed on you with an apology you could not bear to receive. You had held her until the light went out of her, and then you had stood and walked up to the castle and begun to plan how you would make the Greens pay.
Jace had held you that night. He had not said anything, there was nothing to say, but he had held you, and let you weep into his shoulder, and when you were finished he had kissed your forehead and told you that you were the bravest person he had ever met.
Now he was dying, and you were going to save him, no matter what it cost.
You set down the small bag you had brought with you and began to prepare. From the bag you drew a candle of black wax, a small silver knife, a bowl of beaten copper, and a roll of parchment covered in the symbols and words you had copied from the old texts. You arranged them on the floor beside the bed, your hands steady despite the trembling in your heart. Then you drew back the furs and looked at Jace's wounds.
The bandages on his shoulder and side were fresh, changed that evening by the maesters. But the wound in his neck was the one that mattered. You leaned close, examining it in the dim light. The flesh around the arrow shaft was red and swollen, hot to the touch even from inches away. The skin had begun to take on a greyish tinge at the edges, and when you inhaled carefully, you caught the faint, foul scent of corruption beginning to take hold. The maesters were right. If the arrow was not removed, the infection would spread. It would poison his blood, and he would die in fever and delirium. But if they tried to remove it, the arrowhead would tear the great vessel in his neck, and he would drown in his own blood in moments.
Unless you changed the rules.
You had studied the accounts of the Valyrian blood mages for years. You had devoured every scrap of knowledge you could find about the old sorceries, the fire magic that had raised the Freehold to its terrible glory. And you had learned that blood was the key. Blood was always the key. Blood was life, and life was power, and power, properly channeled, could reshape the world.
The ritual Tyanna of Pentos had used, or something very like it, was described in fragments throughout the texts you had found. It was not healing in the traditional sense. It was something older, darker and more profound. It was the transference of life force, the binding of spirit to flesh, the rekindling of the inner fire that kept the soul tethered to the body. The subject would not simply recover. They would be remade, their body repaired not by natural processes but by the direct application of magical will. And the cost would be paid in blood. Not Jace's blood. Yours.
You knelt beside the bed and lit the black candle. The flame burned with a strange, bluish light, and the air in the room seemed to thicken, growing heavy and still. You picked up the silver knife and positioned the copper bowl on the floor before you.
"I don't know if you can hear me," you said quietly, looking at Jace's still face. "But if you can…hold on. Just a little longer. I'm going to bring you back."
Then you set the blade against the inside of your left forearm and cut.
The pain was immediate. Blood welled up from the wound, you held your arm over the copper bowl, letting it drip down into the metal basin. The candle flame flickered, then steadied, burning brighter than before. You closed your eyes and began to speak.
The words were High Valyrian. They were harsh, full of consonants that scraped against your throat and vowels that burned on your tongue. You had practiced them for hours, mouthing them silently in your chamber, but speaking them aloud was different. They had weight. They had presence. Each syllable seemed to hang in the air, resonating with something deep beneath the world.
We ask the Lord to shine his light, and the debt of blood to be paid.
With fire and blood, the debt shall be paid.
Your blood continued to flow, more than you had expected, more than seemed safe. The copper bowl was filling, the dark liquid swirling in the candlelight, and you felt a strange pulling sensation in your chest, as if something vital was being drawn out of you along with the blood. The candle flame rose higher, no longer blue but a deep, angry red, and the shadows in the room began to move.
You reached out with your bleeding arm and pressed your hand against the wound in Jace's neck, your fingers circling the broken arrow shaft. The moment your blood touched his skin, you felt it: a connection, a bridge, a channel opening between your life and his. You could feel his weak heartbeat, fluttering against your palm like a trapped bird. You could feel the poison spreading through his veins, the infection that was eating away at his flesh. And you could feel the arrowhead, a cold sliver of metal lodged against the pulsing wall of his artery, a hairsbreadth from the arms of the Stranger.
No, you thought, and poured yourself into him.
It was like falling. Like drowning. Like being unmade and remade in the space of a single heartbeat. Your vision went white, then red, then black, and you were somewhere else, somewhere vast and dark and full of fire. You could feel Jace there, a flickering ember in the darkness, barely holding on. And you could feel something else, something vast and hungry, watching you from the shadows. The magic. The old power. It wanted what you were offering. It wanted the blood, the life, the sacrifice. It wanted you.
Take it, you said, or thought, or screamed into the void. Take whatever you need. Just give him back to me.
The darkness surged forward, and you knew nothing more.
You woke in your own bed, with sunlight streaming through the windows and the sound of shouting echoing through the corridors.
For a long, disorienting moment, you had no idea where you were or how you had gotten there. Your body felt strange, heavy and hollow at the same time, as if someone had scooped out your insides and replaced them with lead. Your left arm throbbed with a dull, persistent ache, and when you lifted it to look, you saw that someone had bandaged it. The white linen was spotted with red, but the bleeding seemed to have stopped.
The shouting grew louder. Footsteps pounded past your door. Someone was calling for the maester, and someone else was weeping, and beneath it all was a rising tide of voices, excited and frightened and disbelieving.
And then you remembered.
You sat up so fast the room spun around you. You grabbed the bedpost, steadying yourself, and swung your legs over the side of the bed. Your head pounded, your vision blurring, but you forced yourself to stand, to walk, to open the door and step out into the corridor.
A serving girl was running past, her eyes wide and her face flushed. You caught her arm.
"What's happening?" you demanded, and your voice came out rough and strange, barely recognizable as your own.
"My lady!" The girl's words tumbled over each other in her haste. "It's the prince! Prince Jacaerys! He's awake! He's awake, and the maester says his wounds are healing, and the Queen is with him now..."
You let go of her arm. She kept talking, but you were already moving, pushing past her, walking as fast as your unsteady legs would carry you toward Jace's chamber.
The corridor outside his room was crowded with people, servants and guards and minor lords, all craning their necks and whispering among themselves. They parted when they saw you, their eyes wide with surprise or curiosity or something else you didn't have the presence of mind to identify. You didn't care. You didn't care about any of it. You only cared about the door at the end of the corridor and what lay beyond it.
Daemon was leaning by the door. He saw you coming, and his expression flickered, relief and what might have been pride or might have been concern. He stepped forward to meet you.
"It worked," his voice was pitched low so only you could hear. "The maester examined him this morning. The swelling in his neck has gone down. The corruption is receding. They were able to remove the arrowhead safely an hour ago. He is weak, but he is alive, and he is awake."
You closed your eyes for a moment, swaying on your feet. The relief that flooded through you was so intense it was almost painful. "I need to see him."
"Rhaenyra is with him now. She has been there since they told her. She is…" Daemon paused, searching for the right word. "Overjoyed. She thinks it's a miracle."
"It is a miracle," you said.
Daemon's eyes met yours. "Yes," he agreed. "It is. But not the kind she thinks." He put his hand on your shoulder, steadying you. "You did well, daughter. Better than I dared to hope. But be careful with him, he hasn't quite come back to himself yet."
He opened the door, and you stepped inside.
The first thing you saw was Rhaenyra. The Queen was sitting on the edge of the bed, her silver-gold hair unbound and disheveled, her face wet with tears. She was holding Jace's hand in both of hers, and she was speaking to him in a low, urgent voice, her words tumbling out too fast to follow. She looked exhausted, wrung out, the way a person looks when they have been holding themselves together for so long that the relief of letting go is almost as painful as the fear.
And then you saw Jace.
He was sitting up against the pillows, his dark hair brushed back from his face, his eyes open and alert. The bandage on his neck was fresh and white, and his color was better than it had been in days, still pale, but no longer grey, no longer the ashen hue of a corpse waiting to happen. He was thinner than before, the bones of his face more prominent, but he was alive. He was alive.
He looked up when you entered, your eyes met, and you felt as though your heart would burst.
"Jace," you breathed.
His expression shifted. For a moment, he looked almost confused, as if he didn't quite recognize you. Then his face cleared, and he smiled, a small, tired smile, but a real one, and held out his free hand to you.
"There you are," he said. His voice was hoarse, rough from disuse, but it was his voice. "I was wondering when you would come."
You crossed the room without thinking, barely aware of Rhaenyra moving aside to make space for you. You took his hand, his fingers closed around yours, and he was warm. He was warm. You had been so afraid that he would be cold, that the ritual would have taken something essential from him, that he would be a shell wearing Jace's face. But his hand was warm, and his pulse beat steady in his wrist.
Except.
Except there was something different in his eyes. A gleam. A light that hadn't been there before. When he looked at you, you felt the weight of his attention, focused and intense. There was none of the softness you remembered, none of the gentle uncertainty that had always lurked beneath his princely composure. This was a Jacaerys who had looked into the darkness and come back with something of it still burning behind his eyes.
"Your Grace," you said to Rhaenyra, remembering your courtesies even as your heart hammered against your ribs. "I came as soon as I heard."
"He's going to be all right," Rhaenyra said, and her voice broke on the words. "The maester says he's going to be all right. I don't understand it. None of them understand it. But I don't care. My son is alive." She pressed a hand to her mouth, tears spilling down her cheeks again. "I'm so relieved. I thought I'd lost you. I thought I'd lost both of you."
She meant Luke, you realized. Lucerys, who had died at Storm's End, whose death had started the cascade of violence that had led here. Rhaenyra had lost one son already. She could not bear to lose another.
Jace's expression softened. "I'm here," he said. "I'm not going anywhere. But if I could speak with my betrothed now. Alone, if you don't mind."
Rhaenyra hesitated, looking between the two of you. Then she nodded, pressing a kiss to Jace's forehead before rising from the bed. "I'll be just outside," she said. "I'll send for some broth. You need to eat. You need to regain your strength."
She left the room, and the door closed behind her with a soft click. You and Jace were alone.
For a moment, neither of you spoke. You were still holding his hand, and he was still looking at you with that strange, intense gaze, and you didn't know what to say. What did you say to someone you had pulled back from the edge of death? What did you say to someone who might owe their life to a ritual you barely understood and a power you had no right to wield?
"You did something," Jace said at last.
You opened your mouth to deny it, but the words wouldn't come. His eyes were too sharp, too knowing. He could see right through you.
"Yes," you said quietly. "I did."
"What did you do?"
You told him everything. You were too tired to lie and too frightened to hold it in, and because he deserved to know what had been done to him.
When you finished, he was silent for a long moment. Then he reached up with his free hand and touched the bandage on his neck, his fingers tracing the edge of it with a strange, detached curiosity.
"I died," he said. "Didn't I?"
"No," you denied quickly. "No, you were still alive. The maesters said..."
"The maesters said I was going to die. They said there was nothing they could do." His eyes met yours again. "I remember the water. The cold. I remember Vermax screaming. And then…nothing. Darkness. Just darkness, for a long time. And then something else. Something pulling me back. It felt like fire. Like dragonfire, but inside me. In my blood. In my bones." He paused. "Was that you?"
You swallowed hard. "I don't know. I don't know what I did. The texts said the ritual could transfer life force, could bind spirit to flesh, could rekindle the inner fire. But they didn't say how. They didn't say what the cost would be. I just…I couldn't let you die. I couldn't. Not when there was something I could try."
Jace looked at you for a long moment. Then he pulled you toward him, and before you knew what was happening, his arms were around you and your face was pressed against his shoulder and he was holding you so tightly you could barely breathe.
"You foolish, brave, tricky woman," he murmured into your hair. "You could have died. You could have killed yourself. For me."
"There was no choice," you said, your voice muffled against his chest. "There was never a choice. Don't you understand? Without you, there's no point. There's no point to any of it."
You felt him exhale a shaky breath. His hand came up to stroke your hair, gentle despite the new strength you could feel in his grip. "I understand," he said. "I understand better than you know."
You pulled back slightly, looking up at him. Your eyes were wet, you realized. You had been crying without noticing it. He reached up and wiped the tears from your cheeks with his thumb, his touch warm and achingly familiar.
"When I was pulled from the darkness," he whispered, "I dreamed. I dreamed of fire and blood and a throne made of swords. I dreamed of our enemies burning. I dreamed of Aemond Targaryen dying in the mud, with my hands around his throat. I dreamed of victory, absolute and total, with no mercy and no quarter and no hesitation. I dreamed of everything I was too weak to do before." His voice hardened, and that gleam in his eyes grew brighter, more dangerous. "I'm not weak anymore."
You stared at him. There was something new and terrible and fierce in his voice. The boy you had known was still there, but there was something else now, something that had been forged in the darkness and brought back with him into the light.
"The Greens took my brother," Jace said. "They took my dragon. They took my birthright. They tried to take my life. They tried to take you." His hands tightened on your arms. "They will fail. They will all fail. I am going to recover from this. I am going to get out of this bed, and I am going to be there when my mother takes King's Landing. And then I am going to find Aemond Targaryen, and I am going to make him pay for every drop of blood he has spilled."
"Jace," you said, and you didn't know if it was a warning or a plea or a prayer.
"When I woke up," he continued, as if you hadn't spoken, "I felt different. I feel…more. More alive, more aware. Better, altogether." He laughed without humour. "I feel like someone lit a fire inside me and it's never going to go out. Is that what you did to me? Is that what the magic made me?"
"I don't know," you whispered. "I didn't know what it would do. The texts said…"
"The texts said Maegor came back changed. Crueler. Stronger. Unstoppable." Jace's eyes met yours. "Maybe that's what I am now. Maybe that's what you made me."
"No. You're not Maegor. You're not cruel. You're not..."
"I'm not what I was before." He said it calmly, as if stating a simple fact. "I can feel it. The part of me that hesitated, that second-guessed, that worried about being good enough, worthy enough, it's gone. Burned away. All that's left is the fire." He cupped your face in his hands, his palms were warm against your cheeks. "But I'm still me. I'm still yours. That hasn't changed. That will never change."
He kissed you. It was not like the gentle, tentative kisses you had shared before. It was fierce, demanding, full of that new fire, and you found yourself responding to it despite your fear, despite your uncertainty. His lips were warm, his hands were strong, and he was alive. He was alive, and that was all that mattered.
When he pulled back, his eyes were still burning with that strange, fierce light. "You brought me back," he said. "You gave me a second chance. I'm not going to waste it. I'm going to win this war. I'm going to put my mother on the Iron Throne. I'm going to marry you, and we are going to build a dynasty that will last a thousand years." He smiled, and it was a crazed and beautiful thing. "I swear to you."
You looked at him. Your betrothed, your prince, the boy you had loved since before you understood what love was, and saw the man he had become. The fire in his eyes. The steel in his voice. The fury and the purpose and the unshakeable certainty. The old texts had warned that those brought back by blood magic were never quite the same. They came back changed. They came back wrong. But looking at him now, you couldn't bring yourself to believe it.
He wasn't wrong. He was more.
"Rest now," you said, pressing him back against the pillows. "Regain your strength. The war will still be there when you're healed."
He caught your wrist, his strong grip still surprised you. "Stay," he said. "Stay with me."
"I'm not going anywhere," you promised.
You stayed by his side as the days passed, watching as his strength returned with unnatural speed. The maesters marveled at his recovery, calling it a miracle, a blessing from the Seven, the indomitable will of the dragon blood. They didn't know. They couldn't know. Only you and Daemon knew the truth, and you kept it locked away in your hearts, a secret that bound you together in shared complicity.
Part 2: see here
a/n: Comment if you'd like to be added to this series' taglist.
Rn I'm tagging those who commented that they'd like me to post this fic: @ilovefoolishknights @mellowpeacequeen @disturbedturtle @pinkypurplez @oh-miniso @brlghtflame
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Jacaerys Velaryon x sister!reader - House of the Dragon
Summary: After years away Jacaerys comes home to King's Landing to join the realm in celebrating his sister's eighteenth name day. While watching lords swarm her and vie for her hand, he realises it should've always been him.
Warnings: 18+ SMUT no war au, EVENTUAL SMUT, targcest (reader is Daemon and Rhaenyra's daughter), lovemaking in the sky (srry Vermax), p in v, kinda handjob/fingering (both rec), manhandling, implied loss of virginity, kinda naive/innocent reader, alcohol
A/N: Rhaenyra is queen and they're all aged up -> reader is 18, Jace is unspecified but older. (i saw someone have a headcanon abt fucking on dragon back but i cant remember who, but its out there somewhere trust)
MASTERLIST - REQUESTS (open) - WC: 5.4k
The castle has never been quiet on your name day.
From the moment the sun rises over Blackwater Bay the Red Keep hums with the kind of life that belongs only to celebrations.
Servants weave through its corridors, balancing polished silver and bolts of embroidered silk, cooks bark orders from kitchens already thick with the scent of roasting meats and sweet pastries, and somewhere below your window a quartet of musicians have spent the better part of an hour arguing over the same melody.
The sound drifts through the open casement in uneven bursts, carried on the warm summer breeze before it dissolves into the cries of gulls circling the harbour.
It is all for you.
Eighteen.
The number sits strangely in your mind. Lords who once ruffled your hair now bow a fraction lower. Ladies who used to coo at you now ask after your gowns and favourite jewels. Every smile feels just a little too measured, every compliment just a little too deliberate.
But you don't care, because all you're thinking about is Jacaerys.
And he is late.
Well, not truly. The sun has scarcely reached its highest point and no one expected him before midday, but that does little to quiet the restless anticipation thrumming beneath your skin.
It has been nearly two years.
At first the months passed quickly enough. Letters arrived regularly, each bearing your eldest brother's unmistakably careful hand, filled with dutiful accounts of the Riverlands, the Vale, or White Harbour. Tucked inside each letter had been some little trinket that reminded him of you; polished amber gathered along the eastern coast, a tiny wolf carved from pale weirwood by a Northern craftsman, a silver hairpin so delicately wrought that you had been terrified of wearing it the first time.
The gifts had never mattered.
You would have traded every last one simply to hear him laugh across the training yard again.
"Still waiting?"
The familiar voice draws your attention from the road.
Your mother stands a few paces behind you, sunlight catching in the silver-gold of her hair until it almost seems to glow. "I am merely enjoying the view," you reply, with all the dignity you can manage.
Rhaenyra arches a brow. "The view of the Kingsroad?"
"It is a very fine road."
She laughs then, the sound soft and knowing. "You have been watching that very fine road since dawn."
You sigh dramatically, resting your chin upon folded arms. "He promised."
"And Jacaerys has never broken a promise to you."
"No," you admit, a smile tugging at your lips despite yourself. "He has not."
Then, finally, a horn sounds somewhere below.
The guards upon the gatehouse shift, peering out across the road before one suddenly straightens.
"Dragon!"
Every head upon the walls turns skyward.
Your heart leaps into your throat before your eyes have even found him.
Vermax appears, cutting through brilliant blue with powerful, measured strokes of emerald wings. Sunlight catches across his scales, throwing flashes of bronze and green over the city below as he wheels above the Red Keep. He is larger than you remember.
So is the rider upon his back.
"Gods be good," Rhaenyra murmurs behind you, though there is laughter in her voice already. You are halfway down the nearest staircase before she can finish the sentence.
The courtyard erupts into motion as Vermax settles with a thunderous beat of wings, servants scattering instinctively while guards struggle to look composed in the face of a dragon. Dust billows across the flagstones, catching in your skirts as you weave between startled courtiers, heedless of the calls following after you.
Jace has barely swung one leg over the saddle when he hears his name, he turns just in time to see a blur of deep crimson silk racing across the courtyard.
You collide with him hard enough to force him back a step.
The laugh leaves him before he can stop it.
Strong hands find your waist out of pure instinct, lifting you clean from the ground as though no time has passed at all, as though you are still the little girl forever launching yourself at him from staircases and behind pillars in hopes of catching him unaware.
Your feet dangle a good foot above the flagstones, your arms looped comfortably around his shoulders.
"You'll knock me over one day," he says, laughter still colouring every word.
Up close he looks older. The softness that once lingered around his face has sharpened into something unmistakably princely, the line of his jaw more defined beneath the dust of travel, his hair longer than before where the sea wind has escaped the leather tie at the nape of his neck.
He lowers you carefully back onto your feet.
Both hands rise to cradle your face with easy affection, his thumbs brushing absent-mindedly against your cheeks.
His expression softens. "You've grown."
"So have you."
A quiet laugh escapes him.
"I should hope so."
Before you can answer, he bends to press a familiar kiss against your forehead. You simply grin and lean briefly into the touch before stepping back, and he slings an arm around your shoulders, leading you back inside.
Neither of you notices Prince Daemon watching from the gallery above, and neither of you notices the faintest curve beginning at the corner of his mouth.
By the time the sun has slipped beneath the horizon the Great Hall glows beneath a hundred candles.
Music spills from the gallery above in soft, lilting melodies. Gold catches in polished plates, jewelled collars and the circlets worn by lords who have travelled from every corner of the realm to honour the queen's youngest daughter.
Jace has attended more feasts than he can remember.
They have blurred together over the years into a procession of banners and vows, polite smiles and carefully chosen words, each hall distinguished only by the sigil hanging above the high table.
Tonight should be no different.
Instead, he finds himself searching for you before he has even crossed the threshold.
You stand near the queen's chair while one of the ladies fusses with the sleeve of your gown, silver thread shimmering against deep burgundy velvet. Your hair has been left half unbound, pale waves falling over your shoulders in the old Valyrian fashion, catching the candlelight each time you laugh at something Baela says beside you.
You have always laughed with your whole face. That, at least, has not changed.
The feast begins in earnest soon after.
Your mother rises to speak, her words carrying easily across the hall as she welcomes those who have come to celebrate your name day. You sit at her right hand, smiling with the restrained grace expected of a princess, though every now and then your attention wanders, your eyes finding Jace somewhere further down the table.
Each time they do, you smile exactly as you always have.
Lord Rowan's youngest son cannot be much older than five-and-twenty.
Jace remembers meeting him briefly in the Reach; a courteous enough man with an easy smile and an unfortunate tendency to speak longer than necessary. Now he watches as the knight bows over your hand with every appearance of propriety, offering some finely wrapped gift that earns a laugh from you.
You thank him warmly.
The young lord moves away eventually, replaced almost immediately by another.
Then another.
A Lannister cousin. The heir to a minor Crownlands house. A knight from Driftmark whose name escapes him entirely.
Each offers congratulations and smiles, looking at you with unmistakable admiration. It is perfectly reasonable, you are a princess. after all, one who has just turned eighteen.
You are also beautiful, a treacherous corner of Jace's mind supplies.
"They are circling already." Rhaena speaks softly across the table, amusement dancing in her eyes as she follows his line of sight.
Jace frowns. "What do you mean?"
"The suitors." He says nothing. "The realm has been waiting for this birthday almost as eagerly as she has."
In that moment, Jace understands has been absent too long, and the little girl forever racing after him through the corridors of Dragonstone no longer exists outside his memory.
The woman seated at the queen's right hand does.
Some distant part of him, the dutiful prince who has spent years weighing every decision against the good of the realm, should perhaps be appalled by what has just taken root in his mind.
Instead, he is struck only by how little it surprises him.
'If a husband is to stand beside you one day... why should it be anyone but me?'
The feast dwindles by degrees.
One by one the visiting lords excuse themselves. The Great Hall grows quieter with every passing hour until only family and the queen's closest councillors remain, lingering more from habit than obligation.
Jace has scarcely taken three steps beyond the hall when Ser Lorent inclines his head.
"The Queen requests your presence, my prince."
The solar is warm despite the hour, lit by a scattering of candles that throw long shadows across maps and parchment left strewn over the great table. His mother stands beside the open window overlooking the bay, one hand resting against the carved stone.
Daemon lounges opposite her with infuriating ease, a goblet balanced loosely between his fingers.
Neither appears surprised to see him.
"You wished to see me?"
"I did." She gestures for him to come closer. "We were discussing your sister."
"Has something happened?"
"No," Daemon answers before Rhaenyra can speak. "Nothing has happened."
"Yet," Rhaenyra mutters.
Daemon ignores her. "Your sister is eighteen."
"I am aware."
"A great many others are as well."
Jace says nothing.
"The feast made that abundantly clear. It also made clear it is time we considered suitable matches."
Jace nods once. Rhaenyra watches him closely. "So," she says gently, "what would you advise?"
"My advice?"
"You have travelled more of the realm than either of us these past years. You know its young heirs better than most."
Jace considers it carefully, because that is what is expected of him, because he has spent his whole life learning how to answer as the heir before he ever remembers how to answer as himself.
"There are worthy men," he finally scrapes out. Rhaenyra gives a small nod as though she had expected nothing less.
Jace continues, "The son of House Rowan conducted himself well in the Reach. The Redwynes would strengthen our position in the south. The Celtigars remain loyal."
At that, Daemon exhales through his nose with open disdain, swirling the wine lazily around his cup.
“Boring.”
Jace turns to him, frowning. “Excuse me?”
“You are answering as the heir,” Daemon says, as if this is the most obvious thing in the world. “I am asking the man.”
He looks between his mother and Daemon, trying to decide whether he has missed some crucial piece of context, and finds only that strange, infuriating look on Daemon’s face.
“What exactly are you asking me?” Jace says at last.
Daemon studies him for a long moment. "Which of those boys would you choose for her?"
Jace exhales quietly. "I could not say."
"You have met most of them."
"I know them as lords."
Daemon leans back. "But not well enough to know which one deserves to share her bed."
The words strike the room like a thrown dagger. Rhaenyra closes her eyes for a brief, pained moment, as though she can already feel the shape of the disaster coming and would very much like to stop it before it begins.
“Daemon...”
“What?” he asks mildly, with all the innocence of a man who has never once been innocent in his life. “The point of a political match is to produce heirs, and that is generally how marriages produce heirs.”
Jace says nothing.
Daemon watches him for another long moment, “I do not believe you could bear it,” he says at last.
The silence deepens.
“I beg your pardon?” Jace manages, barely.
“I do not believe,” Daemon repeats, his voice calm and level, “that you could bear another man laying hands upon her.”
Rhaenyra straightens at once. “Daemon.”
“I do not believe you could bear another man kissing her.”
“Enough.”
“I do not believe you could bear watching her swell with another man’s children.”
Jace feels the blood drain from his face, every muscle in him going rigid as if he has been struck.
“And I certainly do not believe,” he continues, his tone infuriatingly calm, “that you could stomach another man teaching her what it is to be loved.”
“Daemon.”
Rhaenyra’s voice is sharper now, edged with warning, but the prince merely lifts one hand in a gesture that is almost dismissive, never once taking his eyes from Jace.
“Am I wrong?”
Jace opens his mouth but nothing comes. Because the horror of it is not that Daemon has imagined such things, it is that Jace has.
Daemon’s mouth curves, just slightly.
“I...” Jace begins, and then abandons the sentence entirely, because there is no sentence that can save him now.
“You love her.”
It is not a question.
“You are so thoroughly, catastrophically in love with her that you have spent an entire evening glaring at boys who merely smiled in her general direction.”
Finally Rhaenyra rounds on him. “You cannot simply accuse our son of being in love with his sister.”
Jace would gladly vanish into the stone floor if the gods would be so merciful. Instead he stands rooted where he is while the two most formidable people in the realm discuss him as though he were not present.
“He is miserable,” Daemon says, finally turning his head to look at her. “Because half the realm has suddenly decided my daughter is fit to wed.”
Rhaenyra folds her arms more tightly. “And that does not concern you?”
“Of course it concerns me, hence why we are having this conversation.”
She stares at him in open disbelief. “You cannot seriously believe this is the best solution.”
Daemon raises an eyebrow. “Find me a better man.”
“The point is not whether he is a good man.”
“No?”
He waits. She opens her mouth, clearly intending to explain, and then stops, because whatever argument she had prepared has already begun to collapse under the weight of its own hypocrisy.
“You married your uncle.”
Rhaenyra points a finger at him. “That is entirely beside the point.”
Jace, who has thus far wished for nothing more than escape, finally exhales, very quietly, and when both of them turn to him he feels the full weight of their attention settle over him.
“With respect, Mother...” he says, and both of them look at him with identical expressions of wary expectation. He swallows, then presses on before he can lose his nerve. “...he does have you there.”
Rhaenyra blinks. “You are taking his side?”
“I am merely observing...” The faintest smile threatens despite himself, because if he does not laugh he may very well scream. “...that you did, in fact, marry your uncle.”
The silence that follows is brief, but heavy in a way that feels almost ceremonial, as though something unseen has just shifted its weight in the room and no one is yet willing to acknowledge it.
Rhaenyra is the first to recover.
“This is not something decided in a solar with three people and a bottle of wine.”
Jace shifts slightly where he stands, still trying to understand how he has become the subject of something that feels suspiciously like a verdict. “Mother,” he begins cautiously, “if this is about-”
“It is about nothing yet,” Rhaenyra cuts in quickly, sharper than intended, then exhales and forces her tone back down. “It is about considering what is best for her future.”
Daemon makes a quiet sound of amusement, leaning back in his chair as if the entire matter has already concluded and he is simply waiting for the rest of them to catch up.
“Then consider it done. I am her father and I have found a match for her.”
Rhaenyra’s gaze snaps to him. “Excuse me?”
“You asked for a good man,” Daemon says, as though repeating something painfully obvious.
“You cannot simply decide this,” Rhaenyra says, though even she sounds less certain than before.
“I can,” Daemon replies. “And I have.”
A beat.
Then, almost lazily, he adds, “Unless you intend to send her to some Reachling with soft hands and softer loyalties.”
Rhaenyra’s expression hardens. “Do not reduce this to-”
“To what?” Daemon interrupts, finally straightening in his chair. The amusement in him sharpens now, not into anger, but something more focused. “Politics? That is what you are trying to do. I am simply being honest about it. She is our daughter, Rhaenyra.”
Silence again.
He walks a few steps toward the window, looking out over the Blackwater as if the conversation has already moved past him.
“She stays within the family,” he says casually, almost conversationally, as though discussing ship routes. “She stays where she is known. Where she is protected. Where she is not bartered to men who would mistake her for an opportunity.”
Jace clears his throat once.
“If I may-”
“No,” both of them say at once.
He stops.
Daemon turns slightly, looking at him now with something like faint approval.
“You will marry her,” he says simply.
Jace looks at him with wide eyes, “Are you being serious?”
Rhaenyra closes her eyes again, slower this time, as though bracing for impact.
“I refuse to send my daughter away,” Daemon states. His gaze shifts briefly to Jace, sharp and unblinking.
The room goes still.
Jace should object. He should say something about choice, about propriety, about the absurdity of making such decisions in this manner.
“She does not even know we are having this conversation.”
Daemon’s smile returns, slow and infuriatingly certain.
“No,” he agrees. “She does not. And you will tell her, Jacaerys. Better you than either of us."
“And if she refuses?”
“She won't.”
Vermax takes to the sky just after dawn, when the castle is still half-swallowed in morning mist and the water below reflects a pale gold.
The world feels quieter from above, stretched thin and distant, as though all the noise of court and council has been left behind somewhere on the stone below.
You do not question it when Jace comes for you. You never have.
He arrives without ceremony in the inner courtyard where the dragonkeepers have already prepared Vermax for flight.
“You want to go flying?” He asks simply, as if it is an ordinary thing to offer a princess on the morning after her name day feast.
Your smile comes easily. “I always want to go flying.”
That earns the faintest curve of his mouth. He helps you mount with practised ease, hands steady at your waist as you swing your leg over Vermax’s neck.
Then he climbs up behind you.
The moment he settles into place, the world shifts; you can't help but be aware of the warmth at your back, the solid presence of him there, closer than anyone else has ever been permitted to be in this way. One arm reaches around you instinctively to secure the reins while the other steadies you at your side, palm firm against your ribs.
“You are sitting differently,” you note, turning your head slightly to glance at him.
His expression is unreadable for a moment, then softens. “Am I?”
“Yes.”
Here, there is nothing between you but wind and sky and the steady rise and fall of Vermax’s wings beneath you.
He gives the command, and Vermax launches forward.
The world slowly drops away.
Wind tears at your hair, pulling laughter from your chest without permission, and you lean instinctively into Jace’s grip as Vermax climbs higher, circling the coast before cutting out over open water.
His arm tightens around you without hesitation.
Somewhere behind you, you feel rather than see him adjust his hold, pulling you slightly closer against him as the wind sharpens at altitude. It is automatic, the same instinct that has always placed him between you and anything that might hurt you.
You tilt your head back slightly, just enough to speak over the rush of air. “I like it when you come home,” you admit, without thinking much of it. “Everything feels louder when you are not here.”
You do not see the way his eyes linger on you again. The way they soften in a manner that has nothing to do with duty.
You are laughing at something Vermax does mid-turn when he speaks.
“I am not leaving again.”
The words take a moment to settle. You glance over your shoulder slightly, confused. “What do you mean?”
There is a pause so brief you almost miss it. “They have decided something.”
That makes you laugh lightly. “Have they?”
“Yes.” The tone is careful now, though still steady.
You frown slightly. “What sort of something?” The wind howls.
“You are to be married.”
For a moment, there is only the feel of him behind you, the steady beat of Vermax’s wings, and the distant horizon that suddenly feels much further away than it did a moment ago.
You blink. “...What do you mean?”
“It has been agreed,” he says more softly. “Between our mother and Daemon.”
Your grip on the reins tightens slightly, though Vermax does not react. “Oh,” you say slowly, as if testing the shape of the word. “That is… sudden.”
“It is.”
You turn your head further now, trying to see his face properly, though the angle is awkward with the wind pulling at you. “And who-”
You stop. Because when his jaw tightens you realise you already know.
“Jace,” you say carefully. He doesn't answer, just stares ahead. "Jace. Are we to be married?"
"...Yes."
You turn fully now as much as the space allows, looking at him properly for the first time.
“You are very composed about this,” you say, attempting levity and failing to find it entirely.
His mouth twitches, almost a smile. “I had some time to think.”
The wind pulls at you again, but he shifts without thinking, bringing you closer still until there is barely any space between you at all. You are suddenly acutely aware of it; of the way his arm anchors you, of the warmth at your back, of the steady, unyielding presence of him in a place where there is nothing else to hold onto.
You swallow. “And what do you think?” you ask.
He finally looks at you. “That I would not allow anyone else to do this,” he says quietly.
Something in your chest tightens. “Do what?”
“I would never allow anyone else to stand where I stand.”
Vermax banks sharply beneath you; it sends you forward, straight into him. His arm tightens instantly, catching you before you can even think to steady yourself, and for a moment you are completely held there against him, suspended between sky and breath.
You search his face for something. Uncertainty? Jest? Anything that might soften what he has just said into something easier to carry. You find none.
Your hand rises without thinking, resting lightly against the side of his face. His breath catches, not sharply, but enough.
“Jace,” you say, and his name feels different in your mouth now. He does not answer.
For a heartbeat, there is nothing but the rush of wind and the distant cry of the sea far below.
Then he is kissing you.
Not like something uncertain or newly discovered, but like something that has finally been allowed to exist.
His hand tightens at your waist, suddenly far too close in a way neither of you can undo.
You make a small sound against his mouth, half surprise, half something you don’t yet have a name for, and it seems to undo whatever careful restraint he has been holding onto.
The arm around you shifts, pulling you back against him with a controlled urgency that sends your breath catching, your fingers instinctively curling into the front of his riding leathers as if that alone can keep you anchored.
Vermax turns beneath you and the world tilts, but Jace does not let you fall.
When you finally break just enough to breathe, it is only by a fraction, your forehead still close to his, your breath mingling with his in the cold air.
You look at him then, properly, and something in your expression seems to undo him more than the kiss itself ever could.
“This is…” you start, but the words fail you.
His thumb brushes lightly against your side where he still holds you.
“I know,” he says quietly.
The wind tears past again, colder now against your flushed skin, and you should pull away, should think, should question, should make sense of any of this.
You don't.
Instead he leans in again, lips claiming yours with a hunger that has been building since the moment he returned days ago. His mouth hot and insistent against your own.
The kiss deepens instantly, his tongue slides against the seam of your lips before you part them, letting him set the pace, and the one sets is perfect, a desperate rhythm that sends sparks racing through you.
Your fingers tangle in his dark curls, pulling him closer as his hands roam your body with possessive certainty, one sliding up to cup your breast through the thin fabric of your riding leathers while the other grips your hip, anchoring you against him on Vermax's broad back.
The dragon soars higher, the sea a glittering expanse far below, but all you can feel is the hard press of Jace's body.
You moan into the kiss, the sound swallowed by the rushing air and the steady beat of wings, as Jace shifts you effortlessly onto his lap, your legs straddling his.
His tongue delves deeper, exploring every inch of your mouth with an intensity that makes warmth gather in your belly, wetness already soaking your undergarments.
"You know," he breathes against your lips, his voice rough, "you're mine now. Always have been."
You let him move you as he pleases, but soon you can feel the way his cock strains against his breeches, thick and insistent against your thigh.
"Are you alright?"
You can only nod shakily, letting your head find the hollow of his shoulder.
"Are you sure?"
"Yes, Jace."
His hand slips between your bodies, fingers deftly undoing laces to find your slick folds, stroking you slow and gathering your wetness on his fingers.
Then he reaches to free himself, hot and heavy as you wrap your fingers around him. He covers your hand with his own, guiding your hand to stroke him slowly.
"We should probably stop." he grits out.
You whine in response, "No, Jace please. I don't want to stop."
Jace lifts you higher, positioning the head of his cock at your entrance.
"You tell me if that changes, okay."
"Yes."
"Promise me." He tilts your head towards him, holding your eyes with his own.
"I promise." With that he thrusts upward in one smooth motion, burying himself deep inside you with a groan that vibrates through his chest into yours.
The fullness stretches you perfectly, every ridge and vein of him dragging against your inner walls as he begins to move.
"Gods you're tight." He grunts, his hands gripping to guide your hips in a grinding rhythm that matches the dragon's powerful wingbeats.
Pleasure coils tight in your core, building with each thrust, the wind caressing your exposed skin where leathers have been shoved aside, breasts pressed to his chest, nipples hard from the chill and his touch.
His mouth finds yours again, the kiss messy and passionate, tongues tangling as he fucks into you over and over.
You can feel it — his claim, his love, his protection — in every thrust.
He feels you start to tighten around him, one hand fisting your hair to make you look at him. His eyes are wild, hair messed by wind and jaw clenched to tight its a wonder its not cracked.
"Not yet my love. Hold on for me."
"I cannot, Jace." You gasp, hand flying to his shoulder in desperation.
"Yes, you can." He coos, pulling your face up to meet his in another kiss, this one softer, coaxing you to match him as his thrusts grew harsher, rougher.
Only then does his hand move from your hair, snaking down to find where your bodies are joined. He rubs tight, deliberate circles that have you arching into him.
"Jace, please, it's too much."
"Okay, you can come now."
You do, raw ecstasy filling your body as you shatter around him, crying out his name into the endless sky.
Your eyes shut, body going completely slack against his for the trembling that claims you. Your legs are shaking where they're slotted around his hips.
"Good girl, just like that. Let me take care of you." He says as his thrusts get harder, his hands now assisting to pull you down to meet them.
Then, his pace grows erratic, and you can feel his breathing is more laboured as it hits your temple.
With one final thrust he goes rigid, following you over the edge, pulsing hot and deep within you. His arms wrap around you, the world reduced to the two of you and the endless blue above the waves.
Jace is the first to move.
It is small at first, almost hesitant, as if he is afraid that shifting even slightly might undo something irreparable.
His hand, which had been steady at your waist only moments ago, loosens just enough for him to adjust you more carefully against him, pulling off his cloak and draping it around your shoulders with a gentleness that feels entirely at odds with the fact that you are both still several thousand feet and he's still inside you.
“You’re cold,” he says, though it sounds more like something he needs to believe than something he has observed.
“I’m fine,” you reply automatically.
He doesn’t look reassured.
Instead, he shifts again, this time lifting you off him with a hiss and placing you in front of him on the saddle again.
“You didn’t have to-” he starts.
You tilt your head slightly. “Have to what?”
The words seem to catch somewhere behind his teeth, like everything he might say is either too much or not enough.
“Do that,” he settles on finally, quieter now. “Like that.”
You blink at him, trying to follow. “Jace.”
His jaw tightens slightly at the sound of his name, but he doesn’t look away.
“It should not have been like that,” he says, and there is something carefully restrained in his voice now, something that feels like it has been pushed down hard. “Your first time should have been-” He exhales through his nose, frustrated with himself more than anything else. “Well, for starters, not in the sky.”
For a moment, you just stare at him. “You think I am going to complain because it was in the sky?”
“I am serious,” he says.
“I know you are,” you reply, smiling faintly. “That’s the problem.”
He blinks once.
You shift slightly in his arms so you can see his face more clearly, even as Vermax continues his smooth, unbothered flight beneath you both.
“I do not need it to be… whatever you are imagining it should have been,” you continue, voice softening now, grounding into something steadier. “I did not think about it being in a bed or a room or anywhere else."
"You must've had some fantasy, something you hoped for or wanted from it." He presses, seemingly not content with your reassurance.
"Jacaerys, I wanted it to be you.”
That quiets him completely.
“That is not-” he starts. “It is,” you interrupt gently.
A pause.
Then, quieter, almost teasing now that you have his full attention again, “Besides, I think I will remember this more than if it had been in a bed.”
Something like a reluctant sound leaves him, half laugh and half exhale, and the tension in his shoulders eases just a fraction.
“You are certain?” he asks after a moment.
"Of course."
IYou lean back into him properly, letting the wind rush past as Vermax carries you both forward, the world still impossibly wide beneath you and forever changed.
hes so sweet ik it (but also lowkey freaky) also I knowww people have mixed feeling abt targcest and im sorry but it felt sooo perfect for this fic
