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Chapter Text

The cold night air stung against his skin and the alcohol burned his throat. Every new gust of wind moved his robe this way and that, exposing his bare chest to the snowflakes falling onto his balcony.

Jon wished it would kill him. But his father always said he was the blood of the dragon - he would not die from the cold.

He wished it would kill him, too. His father, King Rhaegar Targaryen, banisher of the attempted usurper, who had caused a rebellion only to crush it later on. It had been him who had cursed Jon to this wretched life, the black dragon of his otherwise perfect court.

If only he were allowed to leave.

He took another swig of his bottle.

Such had become his routine. During the day he would get reminded of his doomed bastard blood that had almost brought the realm to ruin, and during the night he would attempt to drown the stares of the courtiers in alcohol and whores.

A knock sounded on the door.

He groaned and threw his head against the stone he was leaning against, yet stayed conscious.

Another knock.

Perhaps the time had come for him to jump off his balcony and take a burden off his father's shoulder.

A third knock, then the door opened and someone stepped inside.

“Go away!”

He was not in the mood for a lecture from his father, or pity tears from his brother, or sorrowful looks from his sister.

Whoever had entered his room made no sound, did not try to talk to him. Perhaps a new tactic by his father? He looked around the stone pillar, ready to curse him out, yet no word left his mouth as he beheld the figure.

A woman. With blonde hair. Dressed in red.

He wanted to laugh. Another attempt by his father to keep him off the Street of Silk and not tarnish the reputation of his House further. This must be the, what? Tenth, eleventh noble woman to be sent his way to hopefully become his lover.

He had made a game out of it a while ago. How much could these women endure before breaking? His father never learned, he kept sending them.

What did it matter? He could use a good fuck, and at least now he did not have to walk through the freezing city to find a brothel.

Slowly, he rose to his feet and entered his room.

The woman stood unmoving beside the only lit candle, allowing him to get a proper look at her.

Her curly hair was more golden than mere blonde, spilling freely over her shoulders and down to her waist. The lines of her face were sharp, her cheekbones high and her jawline well-defined. She had pale, unmarred skin, with nary a blemish or inconsistency in sight. The deep red dress was a simple thing, yet off-the-shoulder and with a low neckline, clinging to her body.

He emptied the bottle, then smashed it to the ground.

If he had startled her, she did not show.

Carefully, like a wolf stalking its prey, he stepped towards her. She did not look at him, instead staring ahead into the endless distance. He raised a hand to let it hover over her arm, then traced the fabric. Still no reaction.

He started circling her. “Did my father send you?”

“Yes, my prince.”

Her voice was deeper than he thought, not quite fitting to a face like hers.

His hand glid through the soft curls falling down her back. “And do you know why?”

“Yes, my prince.”

“Say it.”

“I am to serve you in whatever way you choose.”

How cute. Dancing around the subject, not being able to say the filthy words his father had instructed her with. Likely one of those pious maidens who prayed to the gods every waking moment.

“What is your name?”

“Cerelle Hill, my prince.”

A bastard for a bastard, how fitting. Certainly, he carried the Targaryen name, yet not even the king's word could wash out this kind of shame.

He squinted as a wave of pain hit his head. The alcohol clearly did not work as intended anymore.

“And whose are you, Cerelle?” He drawled her name. “Perhaps the great Tywin Lannister’s?”

She did not even flinch when his hand grabbed her ass.

“His granddaughter.”

Faintly, he remembered tales of Cersei Lannister, and how she had died birthing a child no one had been able to catch sight of. Yet the haze on his mind made recalling such information difficult.

He stepped in front of her again, her gaze still directed on something far beyond him.

“Look at me.”

Her eyes snapped towards him. Their blue was bright yet cold as ice, almost seeming to glow in the dim light of his chamber. No fear laid in them. No emotion at all, if he thought about it.

“Usually my women show more enthusiasm.”

“If my prince requires me to act differently he need only say so.”

Did she mean to challenge him? Perhaps as the granddaughter of the ruthless Tywin Lannister she had caught a lesson or two. Bastard or not.

He continued his slow path around her unmoving figure, and her eyes followed him until he stood behind her.

Carelessly pushing her hair to the side he pulled at the laces of her dress, and after four, five tugs let the fabric fall freely to the ground.

She wore neither shift nor underclothes. Distantly, he wondered if that had been an instruction or her own intuition. She was thin, little flesh clinging to her bones, yet the curves of her ass and hips were enough to provide a proper hold should he grab them later on.

He let his fingers glide across her bare skin, leaving a trail of goosebumps in their wake as he stepped to her front again.

Her breasts were small yet firm, the nipples rosy and perky due to the cold wafting through the open balcony door. He let his thumb glide over one of them and then pulled, yet found no reaction in her face again.

“Are you a maiden?”

“Yes, my prince.”

Perhaps he should think of something special for her, a grander way to deflower her than what he had planned, yet found no solution through the fog settling on his mind.

The normal procedure, then.

“On your knees.”

She followed his command without question while he started unlacing his pants. Whatever this conversation had been had not aroused him in the slightest - despite the beautiful body before him - so it took a few hard tugs of his fist to make his cock stand at attention.

Cerelle watched his movements. Nothing more, just watched.

He held the head to her lips.

“Suck.”

She opened her mouth slowly, tongue peeking out, and took only the very tip inside her. Then she let it pop out.

Jon should have been annoyed at her languid pace, yet could not help his curiosity as he watched the careful movements, how she explored his dick as if it were a sharp weapon, ready to cut her at a moment's notice. She let her tongue trace his underside, applying ever so much pressure on its veins, garnering low hisses and whines from him. Then she closed her lips around his length again and he audibly groaned at the warmth. She moved back and forth slowly, every time bringing more of his cock into her mouth, the spit glistening in the light of the candle.

He was fully hard now, all the blood of his body moving towards his dick and making his legs quiver. His length throbbed, red and swollen, and he knew this had to end.

He had a reputation to defend, after all.

Her hair was soft under his fingers as he grabbed it, pulling shortly to try to make her gasp, and then slammed himself into her mouth. She gagged, her first real reaction that night.

Fucking finally.

He set a brutal pace, tightening his hold on her hair to keep her steady as he snapped his hips forward again and again, burying his dick further every time it entered her wet, hot mouth.

She had submitted to him almost instantly, opening herself up as far as possible, and then taking whatever he gave her. Tears flowed out of her eyes, mixing with the spit spilling from her mouth, but her body had no other reaction to him.

He was not remotely as quiet, moaning, cursing, grunting with every thrust, gasping whenever even the smallest part of his cock entered her tight throat. It had been too long since he had gotten his dick wet (three days) and his inexperience showed.

Too soon did he near his release, the ache in his cock almost unbearable, and he wanted nothing more than to slam himself deep, deep into Cerelle's throat and force her to swallow all of him, or even to paint her beautiful face with his spent.

Yet she was a maiden, and as such he needed to save himself for her cunt.

He quickly ripped her head back, her little gasp like music to his ears as he gripped the base of his dick tightly to prevent his release. The cold still seeping in through the open balcony door burned his cock, yet if he was uncomfortable she had to be as well.

Panting audibly, his bare chest raising and falling rapidly, he tilted Cerelle's head back.

Her open lips were red and swollen, her cheeks pink and wet with her spit and tears, yet her eyes still stared up at him. That terrifying blue, dangerous as a glacier, signaling his doom if he wasn't careful.

“On the bed.”

How she still displayed such poise after kneeling on the floor and having her poor little throat abused he did not understand, yet her walk to his bed looked close to normal. He almost fell over simply standing and watching her.

Let's see how you'll behave when I'm done with you.

He quickly discarded his robe and pants, and stumbled after her.

“On all fours.”

Her form was impeccable - straight back, head lowered, hands and knees planted firmly on the mattress. He kneeled behind her and let his hands trace the shape of her buttocks, before bringing his hand down hard on her pale skin. He slapped her again and again, until the marks had turned from pink to bright red.

The impact - echoing loudly in the otherwise quiet room - moved her body forward, yet had no more effect on her.

He lowered his hand and started rubbing quick circles on her pearl, attempting to make her at least a little wet before entering her to make it more comfortable for him.

Grabbing her hips so tightly he knew it would leave marks, he lined up his cock with her hole, and slammed his entire length inside in one thrust.

Perhaps she had cried out. He didn't know, for the feel of a warm cunt finally around his length again, especially after having to endure the freezing cold in his room, punched such a loud moan from his throat he was sure the entire castle heard.

He stayed like that, up to the hilt within her walls, dick throbbing painfully, until he was certain he had soaked up the moment completely. Then he slowly pulled out until only the tip remained inside her.

A few drops of blood were smeared on his dick, confirming her assertion that she was a maiden. Had been. He had broken her in officially now.

His grip tightened even more, fingers burying into her skin, wishing to leave permanent marks.

Without hesitating a moment more, he started violently and brutally thrusting into her, never slowing down, never stopping, never giving either of them a second's reprieve.

At some point, a gust of wind extinguished the candle, cloaking the room in darkness. He didn't care. The squelch of his cock hammering into her cunt and the feel of her tight, wet walls squeezing down on him was all he could ever need.

She held him so exquisitely, pulsating around his throbbing dick, grabbing his length so tightly he had half a mind to stop and stay still inside of her the entire night.

Cerelle never collapsed to the bed as her predecessors had always done at this point in the night. She remained hard and steadfast as ice. No sounds spilled from her mouth either, none of the whines, moans, grunts, and curses spat from his own lips.

Too soon did he near his release again. He didn't know whether to fault the alcohol, the previous stunt with Cerelle's throat, his prolonged abstinence from sex, or the cold. Or perhaps the feel of a maiden cunt around his cock.

He sped up his thrusts one final time, his hips slapping against her ass, his dick reaching deeper inside her than before.

Close, he was so close.

Jon leaned forward, planting his hands on the mattress beside hers, and bit down hard on her neck as he came.

His spent coated her inner walls as the metallic taste of blood filled his mouth, his teeth buried deep in her skin and ensuring he left a visible mark on her. No one would see his cum dripping down her legs, nor that she was no longer a maiden, but this she could not hide.

He stayed like that, bodies pressed tightly together, skin against skin, her walls tight around his cock. A small part of him wanted to continue right away, fuck her through the night and into the day until she wouldn't be able to walk for a week.

Slowly, savouring every inch of her beautiful cunt, he started pulling out. The cold grabbed ahold of him almost immediately, and he only barely avoided burying himself inside her heat again. He could tie her to him and ensure his cock would never be cold or dry again.

His dick freed himself from her hole with a plop, and he fell down on the bed beside her.

Now he wished the candle was still burning, longing to see her face - had she cried, did she look at him with hatred or awe, how red were her cheeks? Or did she wear her neutral expression again, one that not even such violent sex could punch off her?

The mattress moved, then he heard her slowly walk across the stone floor. Some shuffling.

He pulled a blanket over his body, curling up on his side.

“Tomorrow. Same time.”

He would have snow in his room when he awoke, yet he didn't care.

“Yes, my prince.”

Light fell through the small gap created by the open door, yet she was gone before he caught a proper look at her.

He pulled up another blanket from the end of the bed, and fell unconscious almost immediately after, the alcohol lulling him into a restless sleep.

Chapter Text

Despite any sense of logic, Cerelle returned the next night. And the next. And the next. And every night afterwards.

Jon tried to get her to leave permanently. He used every bit of knowledge he had acquired over the years, every dirty tactic that had made even the most dedicated ladies flee him.

But none of them worked on Cerelle.

The first week he ordered her to undress herself, climb on the bed, and let herself be fucked by him. Each of those nights he got rougher and rougher with her, spanked her until she certainly could not sit the following day, strangled her throat until her arms finally buckled underneath her weight, and slammed his dick so far into her it hurt even him. He twisted her nipples, pressed her face into the pillow, trapped her arms behind her back.

But no matter what he did to her in any position, she returned the coming night.

Once he fucked her so long the sun rose when he finally collapsed onto the bed. She looked disgusting, could barely move, yet still curtsied and appeared again in the evening.

Then he started ignoring the bed.

He pushed her onto the ground as soon as she entered, hicked up her dress, and fucked her until his knees bled and his cock had emptied himself into her three times.

Four nights he tried this approach, yet nothing changed.

Several times he awaited her when she entered, grabbed her arm, threw her to the ground, and slammed his dick into her throat. Over and over again.

The first time in that position he finished in her mouth - it had only been the second time with her lips around his cock, after all - and forced her to swallow his load. The sight of this picture-perfect maiden doing something so obscene made him hard as a rock and so he repeated the action right then and there.

She did not even bat an eye.

(The most fear she ever showed was when he forced her to drink alcohol, and even then it was only a fleeting glimpse across her face.)

He started getting creative with where he would unload his spent. First directly onto her face, of course, the white substance sticking to her cheeks and eyelashes and lips, and he only barely suppressed a laugh when he sent her back to her room immediately. With direct orders not to clean herself until then.

His semen painted her tits, her dress, her hair, her hands, but every time she left his rooms with her head raised high.

The first time he took her on the bed again he laid her on her back with her head hanging off the edge and fucked her mouth like this. The constant usage of her throat had made it open up, so that night she took him deeper than ever before. His hands pawed at her small tits as his hips snapped against her face, her gurgles and gagging like music to his ears.

Three bottles of the strongest Northern ale he could find in his blood, he dragged her to the bed and fucked her like that first night. Except that his hand had started wandering, and after a lot of moans on his side - and a lot of nothing on hers - his thumb pressed against her asshole.

No gasp, no sound. He spat on the puckered hole, and with a lot of insistence and patience managed to pass the first ring of muscle with one finger.

Sometimes he wished to see her face when he fucked her. A mouth could be easily closed but muscle movements were less readily controlled.

But then he would have to look in her blue eyes again - deep, haunting, full of dark promises - and he would rather hug his father than do that.

Her walls clamped down heavily on him when he tried to pull his cock free of her wet heat, and he knew she likely tried to keep him from going through with his plan, in any way except for begging out loud.

He inserted two of his fingers into her cunt to collect her wetness, and then pressed one of them to her asshole.

“Do you want this, Cerelle?” They had not shared a word in four days, and the sound of his voice sounded foreign to himself. “Do you want me to fuck your ass?”

One finger penetrated the hole, slowly moving into her tight channel until it could not go any further. He pulled it back out before jamming it in again. When he was able to move without problem, he added the second.

“I am for my prince to do as he pleases.” The first time in nine days he heard her deep voice. “I stand in his service. Whatever he deems fit to do with my body he shall.”

Instructions given by his father, no doubt. The thought made him angry.

He curled his fingers inside her, opened and closed them, jammed them in and out, until he ripped them out and placed his cockhead at her entrance.

Perhaps it was the alcohol, perhaps wishful thinking, but he could have sworn he heard her take in a deep breath.

He wanted to slam inside of her, bury himself to the hilt in one thrust, but her ass was tighter than her cunt the day he had deflowered it. So he was forced to advance slowly in the beginning.

Despite what his reputation or the odd gossip might indicate, he did not like fucking a woman's ass. A cunt was made to have his cock inserted - the squelch, the quivering of the walls, the perfect fit. Sure, he enjoyed the other holes women - and men, on the odd occasion - had to offer, but he mainly took those as an exertion of power. A claim he could stake.

That night, he finished deep in her guts, and had to grin as he watched her walk away with a slight stumble.

Cerelle’s body seemed to slowly get used to his - and his to hers, as terrifying as that notion might be - so it should not have surprised him when she peaked on his cock multiple times herself. It usually happened on nights he did not stop at one turn, or when his hands wandered a bit too much.

The first time the sudden squeezing of her walls had taken him by such surprise he had finished early like an inexperienced maiden. Thinking she could get actual pleasure out of their interactions, despite her seeming indifference, left him reeling.

He was curious to try again, see what exactly caused her seemingly random peaks of pleasure, but then he drowned himself in more alcohol, and the thought faded.

One night, when he had her pressed against the wall, cock in her cunt and hand around her throat, he realised he hated her.

Hated her impassive face, hated the way she never made a sound besides slight gasps here and there, hated how she never spoke unless asked- no, commanded to, hated how she simply took everything he did to her, and more than anything, he hated how she returned every night.

What did she want from him? What could she possibly have to gain from this?

He watched her dress from the security of his blankets.

He hated her golden hair and how she never made the effort to style it, hated her perfect skin that never seemed to keep a mark for longer than three days, hated the red dress she always wore, and oh, how he hated her blue eyes.

Why did she never show any emotion towards him? Why could she not fight back?

He pounded her cunt from behind, his mind filled with all the unanswered questions that had arisen over these last weeks. Moons?

Everyone despised him, that was simply part of who he was. The Black Dragon, more Stark than Targaryen, a bastard who had caused the deaths of thousands of innocents, who had killed his mother in an effort to simply exist. Their hatred was what kept him alive.

The candle on the bedside wavered with their movements, every punch of him met with a flicker of it. His pillows were thrown wildly over the bed and the ground, his blankets bunched around his knees. The bed hit the wall with every thrust.

How could his furniture show more reaction to him?

She was slick, and warm, and a hole that did not object. He should be happy. He did not have to pay for her. Whatever he wanted, he got. For the first time in his life.

He grabbed her hips, burying his nails in her skin, and threw her onto her back. Slamming his dick back into her, his hands circled around her wrists and pressed them into the mattress. Their faces were so, so close, yet there was no fear in hers. Only confusion.

“Why won't you hate me?” he sobbed.

“If my prince wants me to.”

He buried his face in the crook of her neck, and came.

They laid there, bodies pressed together, her skin cold despite his furious fucking. He should move, but he was too tired.

Cock still buried in her, he fell asleep.

She was gone in the morning, any trace of her vanished as if she never existed. Someone had laid his head on a pillow and pulled up the blankets to cover his nude body.

When the servant came to bring him a new flagon of some wine, Jon gruffed out the order to find Cerelle and tell her to not come again unless he called for her. Then he vomited up a liquid reeking eerily similar to the ale of last night, and fell unconscious right after.

Chapter Text

Aegon dragged him kicking and screaming out of bed and down to the practice yard. He was forced to destroy straw puppets until he collapsed against the wall, out of breath and with a worse headache than usual around this time of day.

His brother jumped nimble-footed across the carnage, spinning and jabbing his spear the way Oberyn Martell had taught him. He looked graceful in a way Jon could never be - constantly drunk and only willing to bend if it got his dick wet.

Aegon was the only one of the three siblings to inherit their father's white hair and purple eyes, yet that was where the similarities stopped. Everything else about his brother - his brown skin, his build, his face, even the softness with which he treated Jon - came from his mother.

The snow under his fingertips was cold, biting into his skin and seeping through his clothing. A storm had raged across King's Landing the previous night, bringing the otherwise buzzling castle to a standstill, leaving the training yard eerily empty.

Aegon sat down gently beside him, the perfect crown prince seeping into every move he made.

They stared out into the snow, a comforting silence settling around Jon.

“I heard you have a new friend,” his brother finally said.

Friend. What a strange word. Foreign. Poisoned.

“I don't know why father keeps sending them.” Jon picked up a fist full of snow and threw it across the yard. “It's like sending lambs into the wolf’s den, hoping for a different outcome every time.”

“Perhaps he hopes you marry one of them. Settle down, stop drinking, continue the family line.”

He laughed, the sound echoing off the high walls around them.

“Who is she?” his brother asked eventually.

Jon would rather do anything but talk about that woman, but knew he would never be able to deny his brother.

“Tywin Lannister's granddaughter.”

Aegon raised his brows. “The bastard no one's ever seen?”

Jon nodded.

“What was she called? Ceryse?”

“Cerelle.”

The name burned on his tongue.

Aegon nodded absentmindedly. Then he smiled. “What is she like?”

Annoying. Intriguing. Terrifying.

“She's a good fuck, even if she never makes a sound when I put my-”

“Not like that!”

Aegon laughed, pushing against his arm. It hadn't been all that hard, but Jon's head still turned, and so such a simple action caused him to topple over and fall into the snow. His brother laughed even harder now.

“How can one fall over while sitting?”

Jon shook the snow from his hair. Black, like those of the mother he killed. “Maybe by having the worst brother in the history of the Seven Kingdoms.”

“Don't lie, I know you love me.”

Aegon's words were true, but only because loving him was easy. Everything about Aegon came easily to him - charme, kindness, politics, martial matters. The like of him was an anomaly at their cutthroat court.

Yes, Jon loved his brother, but not in the way Targaryens did. None of them - besides their father and uncle - felt truly comfortable with their ancestors’ traditions, and they all agreed it would be better if that part of their family stayed buried with the Mad King. Even Daenerys, who lived on Dragonstone with her mother most of the time and barely interacted with them, had come to the same conclusion. One conversation during a visit to the capital, and she had sworn to oppose any notion of a marriage to Aegon. Perhaps Rhaella had influenced her in that regard.

“No, truly.” Aegon dragged him up from the ground. “What is Cerelle like?”

Jon pondered what to answer. “She… She isn't scared of me. Nor does she like me. She simply lies there, listens to my commands, and then leaves once it's over.”

“And that is bad… because?”

“Because I could just as well be fucking a puppet. She doesn't react to anything I do, simply repeats father's instructions when I ask her if she wants to continue.”

“Have you tried talking to her outside of sex? I hear women tend to like that.”

“Why would I? She's just a whore at the end of the day.”

Aegon groaned and shook his head. “You are hopeless, Jon.”

“What do you mean?”

“How do you expect to get to know her if you don't want to get to know her? She doesn't know you, why would she be willing to be vulnerable around you if you treat her like she is disposable? If at any moment, you could throw her out of the castle gates because you have grown tired of her? She probably doesn't want to get attached only to be broken later on.”

He had never thought of any of his whores and forced lovers that way. That they could be scared, not of him, but of the position they entered.

“Jon,” his brother said softly. “Cerelle is a bastard. Who knows what she has had to go through. What has happened to her to make her so closed-off.”

“I am a bastard, too,” he said quietly.

“Then show her. Tell her. If you want her to open up to you, prove to her it is safe to do so.”

Jon gnawed at his broken lips, his teeth ripping open old wounds and letting droplets of blood glide onto his tongue. The snow seeped into his clothes, wet cold biting his skin.

Then a snowball hit him in the head.

He let out a sound somewhere between confusion and anger, but Aegon just laughed.

“Stop being so gloomy all the time. I'm sure you'll figure out what to do with your little friend. And until then…” He picked out another fistful of snow. “I'll wreck your drunken ass.”

They chased each other across the practice yard, hurling snow and ice at each other until neither of them could properly aim anymore, too busy laughing.

(Not that Jon had been able to aim properly to begin with, the alcohol from the night before still too strong.)

“Oh, Ser Barristan, please save me from this wild beast hunting me,” Aegon begged the knight standing in the shadows, watching their every movement.

The man chuckled. “Some battles have to be won without outside interference, my prince.”

Aegon gasped offended, and Jon used that opportunity to finally let a snowball hit his neck. His brother squealed, quickly peeling the snow out of his tunica.

“Look what you have done, Ser Barristan. Because of you I now have to die.”

The knight likely smiled beneath his helmet, but made no sound.

Jon wrapped his arms around himself. “Let's go back inside, I'm freezing.”

Aegon cleared his throat and donned a grim face. "You are a Targaryen, the blood of the dragon, with fire flowing through your veins. You do not cower, you do not bend, and you do not freeze in the cold.”

They both burst out in laughter as they walked back into the castle.

Mocking their father was far too easy. And far too much fun, as well. Though they had to take care never to be overheard doing so, otherwise Jon would certainly bear the brunt of the ensuing punishment. King Rhaegar would never be caught standing against his beloved heir.

“Don't do anything stupid,” Aegon said as a goodbye before heading towards the council chamber.

Jon strolled aimlessly through the Keep, not quite knowing what to do with his day, when he heard voices. Two, to be exact, and he knew both of the men they belonged to.

“Is a journey to the Wall truly necessary?” Jon Connington, the king's Hand, asked. “There have been reports of skirmishes in the Marches, you must stay to-”

“This winter has lasted four years already, and is sure to be the longest in known history,” his father answered. “I must ensure our protection, or we will be helpless once the eternal darkness falls.”

Fuck.

He did not, under any circumstances, want to encounter his father without allies by his side. Otherwise it would only end like last time, with tears, screams, broken glass, and Jon hiding in brothels for an entire week.

Before the two men could walk around the corner and into his hallway, he quickly slipped through the closest door.

Jon had expected a storage room, or even the chambers of some minor lordling. What he was faced with instead were shelves upon shelves of books, scrolls haphazardly thrown into baskets in a corner, decades and even centuries old manuscripts piling up against the walls.

He had known about the existence of a library in the Red Keep, the way one knew of scorpions or lions. Accepting it even without ever needing or wanting to see it.

But what intrigued him far more than the dusty books was the quiet singing coming from much farther into the room.

He didn't understand a single word, but the voice still captivated him nonetheless. Grabbed his mind, his body, his soul, daring him to follow it into the abyss.

The stone floor muffled his steps, cloaking his approach as he neared the origin of the strange singing. He wanted- He needed to get closer, to find out more about its owner, see with his own eyes what could possibly enchant him so ardently.

Past yet another shelf of books, he finally found her.

Cerelle.

The name almost slipped out of his mouth, and he was barely able to restrain himself.

Ever since his pathetic outburst a fortnight ago, he had not seen her again. She had adhered to his command, even if it had been carried to her by a servant, without protest. He hated her for it - this blind obedience towards everything he told her.

It was her singing that had lured him here, those soft and gentle words wafting through the otherwise quiet library, drawing him in, keeping him close, commanding his every movement.

Love comes easy

By the blossoms of spring

Love grows easy

From the leaves of summer

Love lasts easy

With the fruits of autumn

But your love shall prove itself

In the dying of winter

When creatures fall upon me

And you wish to flee

Let the gods bare witness to all

As I beg you to, please

Stay with me

She had not noticed him yet, too focused on her singing and sorting through the shelves. Next to her stood two half-empty baskets of even more books.

Her hair did not fall openly down her shoulders in its entirety, as it had done every other time he had seen her, but was braided in some parts, pinned up to keep it out of her face. And her dress wasn't the simple dark red one either. Instead, she wore an intricately embroidered gown of three different shades of blue. Not as grand as the ladies of the court wore them, but better than the one he had always seen her in.

His first words needed to sound smart. He wanted to outwit her at least once during their interactions, wanted to take her off-guard, wanted to finally see her lose control.

He should have drunk alcohol before coming here, it would have made this much, much easier.

Leaning against the shelf to his right, he said, “Pretty song. Didn't know your voice lasted this long.”

Cerelle whirled towards him, and for a single moment she looked genuinely shocked. Then she realised who he was and had her impassive face donned not a second later.

“My prince-”

“No.” He shook his head as he approached her. “I never want to hear these words from you again. You will talk to me, not as if you're forced to by my father, but because you want to.”

He stood before her, trying to gleam any emotion from her blue eyes, but she just watched him. Stared, unmovingly. He had to suppress the urge to avert his gaze, or shift on his feet.

Just when he thought she would never move, she cocked her head and said, “So is that what you are missing? A friend?”

Now he wished he had never forced her to talk. Because what in the seven hells was he meant to answer to that? How was he supposed to defend himself?

Cerelle turned around and walked away, leaving him to stand dumbfounded within a mess of books.

“Wait!”

He hurried after her, knocking over a stack of books and almost tumbling to the ground after them. Cerelle had disappeared around a corner, and he hastily followed her.

“Who gave you permission to talk to a prince like that?”

“You did, just now.”

She sorted one of the books she held in her hands back amongst its brethren, yet did not turn towards him.

“I did not. I only asked you to talk to me like you were a person.”

She continued to walk away from him. “You ordered me to talk to you like I wanted to. And I want to get to know you.”

“By insulting me?”

“You consider the question of your true intentions with me an insult?”

This time, she did turn towards him, yet seemingly only in order to raise a brow, challenging him to give her an honest answer.

She had apparently learned a thing or two from Tywin Lannister, and he hated her for it.

“What are you doing here?” He quickly switched the topic.

“Making myself useful.” She continued her walk along the shelves, occasionally putting a book upon them. “His grace, your father, quite enjoys reading, and so has amassed something of a collection over the years. One which no one has deemed to properly sort all this time. I need to justify my presence in the capital somehow, at least.”

Jon picked up the book she had just shelved and read the title: “Hardhome: An Account of Three Years Spent Beyond-the-Wall among Savages, Raiders, and Woods-witches”.

What a wonderful title.

“But why sorting books?” he asked. “Why not do some of the things you girls do? Embroidery, singing, or gossiping about handsome lords.”

“ Things you girls do . Now it is you who is insulting me. You make it sound like there is something bad about being a girl and enjoying non-violent ways to spend one's time.”

He wanted to tell her of all the non-violent ways he spent his time, yet could not think of any. That his clothing was still wet from the snowball fight earlier did not help.

“And how do you spend your time?” He followed her around the library like a lost puppy. “Besides… this.”

“Why do you want to know? You've seemed quite content with not even looking at my face whenever I was with you.”

“Perhaps I want to get to know you now.”

She laughed. An actual, true, unapologetic laugh, swallowed up by the books and scrolls and tomes surrounding them. Jon knew he would never forget the sound.

And yet, despite how it pierced deep into his heart, he could not help feel angry. How dare she , a bastard, a whore, laugh at him the same way those pretentious courtiers did. So full of disdain and arrogance and… and… hatred.

Within a single moment, he had her pressed against the bookshelves, hand burying into the wood beside her head, the impact punching the breath out of her. Her books had tumbled to the ground, her gaze following them, yet he quickly took ahold of her chin to force her face to meet his again.

He cocked his head, trying to find any sense of repulsion in her face. Yet there was nothing .

His gaze darkened.

“Perhaps I want to get to know you-” He slowly let his hands glide down- “Because I know nothing about you. After all these weeks, the most I know is that you do not shiver when your juices gush all over me.” He caught the fabric of her skirt between his fingers. “Do you not want to know the men you fuck?” Slowly, he started pulling her dress up.

“What are you doing?” Her voice wavered just the tiniest bit, and he smiled.

“I think our relationship might have begun a bit… strained.” He let his hand glide up her silken stockings. “We should remedy that.”

“Here?” she whispered.

“Would you prefer the Iron Throne?”

The small spark of fear in her face was quickly replaced by… curiosity.

“You truly hate your father.”

His hand had sprung up and closed around her throat within a single blink of an eye. “If you ever mention him again I will ensure you pay for it dearly.”

The lack of any emotion in her eyes made him so terribly angry, he knew he could not continue his current pace. His free hand grabbed her undergarments, ripped them down, and then pressed against her pearl. Harshly .

She took in a surprised breath. That was enough, he decided, to remove his hand from her throat and grab the shelf beside her head instead.

(He hated that they were the same height. She should stand beneath him, ready to be dominated.)

Pressing his finger against her pleasure point this tightly might not be comfortable for her, but this was not about her . She was his and only his, and she needed to realise that. He would not let her leave like the others.

His thumb moved to her pearl as his forefinger glid further along her cunt and towards her hole, wet and warm and waiting only for him.

“Have you ever touched yourself here?” he asked with a lowered voice, face so terribly close to hers he saw a million shades of blue reflected in her eyes.

“No, my prince.”

He stepped closer and sheathed a finger into her heat up to the knuckle. “I told you not to call me that anymore.”

“Then what am I meant to call you, my prince ?” she breathed out. The emphasis on his title could have been accidental, yet Cerelle did not seem like the kind of woman to allow simple accidents.

He curled the finger inside her, and slowly dragged it out before plunging it into her again. “Jon will be just fine.”

“As you command, Jon.”

The sound of his name on her lips made his cock twitch, and he yearned to pull down his pants and fuck her on top of his father's precious books. But he restrained himself (for now).

He quickly added another finger into her cunt, dragging them along her walls and searching for a way to make her lose control. A futile undertaking, he knew, for even though her chest was moving rapidly, her pupils were blown so wide he saw comfortingly little blue, and her nails were buried in the wooden shelves behind her, she simply stared at him. Silently.

Her breathing and the squishing of her cunt echoed in the large room, and if anyone entered they would immediately know what was happening. He wished for it. Let his father know what he thought about his books and plans and gifts .

A third finger entered her tight heat. His thumb continued to rub insistent circles on her pearl, trying desperately to make her peak.

No, not desperately. He could not care less about her pleasure, about how beautiful of an image it would make for her to gush all over his fingers, dropping her juices on the books and scrolls beneath. He simply wanted to torture her, show her what he could do to her body if he only wanted to.

Perhaps this way he could finally learn about her. Question her in the throws of passion, force her to reveal what she wanted from him, why she refused to leave him. And then he could throw her out. Send her back to that rock she called home, mayhaps even with a bastard growing in her belly.

She took in a sharp breath as her walls clenched around his fingers and her juices started flowing out of her. He fucked her through it, prolonging her release to, hopefully, painful levels. She almost closed her eyes, yet kept them open despite it all, and he almost commended her for it.

His hands were sticky when he finally freed them from her cunt, and if she had been anyone else he might have tasted the fluid, but he would not give her the satisfaction. Instead, he grabbed her skirt and wiped it off.

She did not say a thing.

“Tonight. Same time as always.” He turned to leave, yet stopped at the end of the row of shelves. “And make sure I never see that red dress again.”

He needed an entire flask of ale after this entire ordeal.

Chapter Text

He had gotten addicted to watching Cerelle come.

She almost seemed to fight against it, struggling to not give in to such a base desire, desperate to deny him the satisfaction of bringing her pleasure. Her hands tightened in his mattress as he slammed his hips into her, fingers curling into the soft fabric and almost ripping it apart.

That first night after their conversation in the library he had laid her on her back and stared at her as he fucked her from above. She had not moved, but the quickening of her breath and the widening of her pupils betrayed her.

(She had worn a blue dress again. Not the intricate beauty he had caught her in previously, but something much simpler. Still. The change had been nice.)

Every night he adapted his approach by a little. First he simply held her hips as he pistoned in and out of her, then he grabbed her breasts and played with her nipples, and sometimes he even pressed his thumb to her pearl. That usually made her peak rather quickly.

He was slowly getting used to her blue eyes, as terrifying a notion that might be. What had started as deep and broken and doomed, became a sort of comfort to him over time. Something he could lose himself in. He tried to remedy that development by downing two bottles of wine instead of one before her arrival, yet all he achieved by this was spilling sooner inside of her wet heat. Too soon.

He needed to see her come. To fall apart for him. To hand herself over completely to his mercy.

It came as no surprise to him, then, when he allowed his face to carefully approach hers over the countless nights in his bed.

He only did it to study her expressions better, he told himself. Up close she had less opportunity to hide her true feelings, being forced to stare into his eyes and witness what her tight cunt did to him.

During one night's tryst he grabbed the headboard instead of her hips, greeting the new angle into her heat, the better leverage it provided to slam his cock into her pleasure point. And then, almost as if in response, she moved her hands.

One went up to her head, twisting her fingers around her hair splayed out on his pillow. The other wandered to her stomach, spreading across her pale skin, and then - either subconsciously or deliberately - pressing down .

He did not spill from that alone, but the memory certainly haunted his mind when he finished, moaning loud enough to wake the entire castle.

Needless to say, that became his favourite position to fuck her in.

(They never kissed. Despite everything, despite their blooming closeness, despite the marks he left across her chest, their lips never touched. He made sure of it. That was a line he would never cross.)

Through the haze of the alcohol he had troubles discerning her motivations on some nights, but some of her actions, he was convinced even then, could be no accident.

For whenever he allowed himself to give into her allure and move closer, she let herself fall apart just the slightest bit more. He touched her pearl, she let out a soft sigh. He made her peak with his fingers in her cunt first, she closed her eyes when he did the same with his cock later on. He grabbed the pillow instead of the headboard, she slightly arched her back.

Perhaps what Aegon had said carried truth. If he approached her, she might take a step towards him as well.

None of her reactions seemed rehearsed, he noted as he listened to her gasps and whines as he sucked on her tit. But more as if a hidden secret was slowly spilling out of her. Cracks forming in white marble that would soon break in full and give way to the true Cerelle hiding behind the glamour.

Just a few more weeks , he assured himself. Then she would trust him in full. She would writhe and thrash and moan beneath him, and he could finally throw her out of his rooms for good. Another conquest. Another pretty lady destroyed. Another plan by his father that did not work.

He watched her enter his rooms on some nights, from the safety of the balcony's shadows.

The first time he did it, she had looked around confused, seemingly wondering where he was. But she did not leave. She simply stood there in the middle of his room, unmovingly, arms at the side of her body, golden hair glowing in the light of a lonely candle and sporadically wafting in the breeze entering through the open windows. He stared at her, even if he did not know what he hoped to achieve.

After that first night, when he had finally emerged from his hideout to fuck her quickly and then send her on her way, she knew where he was. There existed not many secret spots in his chambers, after all. But she never approached him. Never looked towards him. Never acknowledged his presence.

Instead, what he did note, were her eyes that slowly moved across his room, inspecting the sparse furniture, the chipped wood and broken parts littering the floor, the bottles strewn around. She even turned once, to look at what was behind her, yet quickly adjusted her posture again not soon after.

The clothing she wore did not change much across their nights. Simple, unassuming, flimsy dresses in blue or green, with a deep neckline and fitting so tightly around her body he was almost able to count her ribs simply by standing in front of her.

He wished she would make an effort to look presentable - braid her hair, put on some jewelry, apply that face paint that had become popular amongst the courtiers as of recent. Simply anything to show she cared about his perception of her, and to allow him to rip it all away.

Of course he would never utter such a wish out loud.

One night, after waiting in the cold and darkness of his balcony and watching as the purple dress glid off her shoulders and pooled around her feet, and after the throbbing of his dick had finally overpowered the one in his head, he had taken her by the waist and positioned her on the bed.

He had not wanted to let go of her - his fingers buried themselves into her flesh almost on their own - but had eventually relented. He moved back, knelt between her legs, put some much, much needed distance between them.

She looked… beautiful. No other word came to his mind, just this one. Golden hair spreading around her head and curling against her arms and hip, skin still pale and unmarred of his ministrations, long fingers tracing strange patterns against her stomach, blue eyes as deep as the distant ocean. He never wanted to look away.

“Touch yourself.”

Cerelle, ever so slightly, cocked her head.

“You heard me,” he continued. “You have laid beneath me long enough, you must know what you like. So I want you to touch yourself. Make yourself come on nothing but your fingers, gush them in your juices, and know that no one else had a hand in defiling your pretty face.”

“What will you gain of this?”

Oh, how he had missed her voice.

“You'll see.”

She waited a moment for him to say something, and when he did not, her hands started moving.

One went up to her chest, lightly tracing a nipple, while the other slowly descended downward. Her legs inched apart to give her fingers space, and thereby allowing him a proper view of her cunt.

He didn't know where to look, what part of her body to focus on. Her chest, slowly starting to heave from the pleasure? Her eyes, that so desperately tried to stay open? Or her fingers, that were already working quick circles on her pearl, which forced a small trickle of juices out of her cunt?

He started palming the tent in his pants.

The hand that had worked at her chest joined the one between her legs. It traced her hole, slowly wetting its fingers, before it inserted the tip of one inside. Just that, nothing more.

He met her eyes, their blue staring at him the way so few dared. His fingers worked at the laces of his pants, dragged his cock out, and gave it a long tug.

Almost as if in response, the rest of her finger entered her hole, while her other hand sped up its movements on her pearl.

He did not know why he was stroking his cock now. His original plan had been to force her to make herself peak, no help or assistance from him, and simply watch. Make the perfect little lady debase herself.

But now he couldn't stop . His hand was moving faster and faster across his throbbing length, his knees almost buckling underneath his own weight, all the while Cerelle was now fucking herself with two fingers. The squelch made him moan.

His father was right, he was pathetic. Couldn't even keep his hands off himself for one moment. Wasn't able to see through a simple punishment.

Cerelle most likely revelled in the hold she had over him, the trembling of her lip not being one of pleasure but a laugh she was holding back.

He couldn't come, couldn't spill so soon all because his whore was fucking herself before his eyes, even if the image she had crafted - pink cheeks, legs splayed wide, mouth slightly agape - was one sent by the gods.

Then she suddenly threw her head back, her juices gushing out of her and soaking the mattress beneath, and the mere thought that he had finally found a way to make her lose control made him spill his seed all across her hands and cunt.

The usual bliss that came upon him after coming sometimes made him act like a madman, he knew that. And yet he was not remotely prepared for when he took her hand - soaked in both their fluids - in his, brought it up to his mouth, and started sucking it clean.

He did not want to like the taste, and yet he did, and therefore couldn't stop. It was demeaning, totally unbecoming of a prince.

His eyes met hers just as he put two of her fingers into his mouth. He expected her to look disgusted, or at least mildly disinterested, but-

No, that was lust in her gaze. Lust. What so few of his previous lovers had ever displayed, and what he himself even lacked on some days. Lust. And, perhaps, something darker.

Then her fingers almost accidentally pressed down on his tongue, and against his better intentions he whined . He did not dare look at her eyes after that.

“Tomorrow. Same time.”

His gaze was fixed to the place she had just vacated, even long after the door of his room had fallen shut.

Chapter Text

Jon stood by his balcony. The cold wind wafting through the open door brought with it a not inconsiderable amount of snow, most of which amassed by his feet, while the rest settled in his short hair. Three empty wine flasks stood on his table, the booze rushing through his body and making his head thrum. It was what he needed to face today.

He waited. And waited. Until the all-too familiar knock echoed in the room.

Restraint was something he had always lacked, but the miniscule drop of it he possessed was enough to keep him pressed against the wall, awaiting her entrance with the appropriate amount of poise to be expected of a prince.

Cerelle wore a dark green dress tonight, hanging so low off her shoulders it might fall off soon. Her hair was open as always, the golden curls spilling like a waterfall over her shoulders and all the way down to her hips, seeming ever so slightly brighter against the dim fabric hugging her thin body.

She stopped in the middle of the room, hands in front of her body, chin slightly raised, and stared directly at him.

They stayed like that for a while. Neither willing to cede ground, neither eager to bow to the other.

Eventually, he took a careful step towards her, his toes numb from the snow, the alcohol in his blood causing him to almost stumble, the wind moving his robe around with little resistance. Cerelle remained still as a statue, and so he continued his walk towards her.

He did not circle her, as he had done that first night. Instead, he forced himself to stare into her eyes, glowing like blue fire, and, in return, accepted her relentless gaze on himself.

“Why are you here?”

“You commanded me to come yesterday. Or do you not remember?”

He still hated her, he realised at that moment.

“That is not what I mean and you know it.”

“Speak plainly, my prince.”

He suddenly stood so close to her he could feel her breath fan across his lips. “I thought I had told you not to call me that anymore.”

“You have given me little reason not to.” Despite her hands being mere inches away from his crotch, she seemed unbothered. “You do not respect me, I do not understand why I need to respect you.”

He despised everything about her, and a part of his drunken mind yearned for nothing more than to throw her to the ground and fuck her until his knees were bleeding. But the better, less drunken part knew to restrain himself.

There was work to be done.

So he reached a hand out, grabbed her arse, and pulled her tightly against himself.

Only her quick reaction kept their foreheads from slamming into each other, yet he could not help but hope that the way she leant her upper body backwards meant she did not desire his touch.

Their lips were closer than ever before. All it would take was one unwitting movement.

He was once again painfully reminded that Cerelle was his height - their eyes on the same level, neither looking down at the other. True equals, some might say.

“Is this the lack of respect you mean?” he said quietly, dropping his voice to appear as threatening as possible.

“Yes,” she whispered. Then she cocked her head. “I wonder, though, why you care. I offer you my body to do with as you please, and no matter how you treat me, I do not object. You wanted me to hate you, did you not?”

“This is not hate, it's indifference.”

“But why do you need this hate so desperately? Should a man like you not desire love instead, after everything you've been through?”

He buried his fingers into the flesh of her arse and pressed her tighter against his cock. “What would you know of what I've been through?”

“Each bottle shard littering your ground tells a story.”

No matter what he did, no matter how mean or threatening he thought he was, Cerelle did not allow herself to be intimidated by him. Steadfastly, she stood strong, despite everything he put her through. Were she anyone else, he would be impressed.

But she wasn’t. And that was his doom.

“Undress me,” he growled.

She did not protest, did not hesitate, did not seem confused at this rather strange command. Instead, she carefully stepped out of his grasp and behind him, her slender fingers brushing against his skin as they took ahold of the edges of his robe and slowly pulled it down his arms. The heavy fabric dropped to the ground as the cold enveloped his naked upper body.

He stumbled, almost. Perhaps he should not have drank all that wine, but it was the only way he could face her. Otherwise, that courage would have long left him.

Cerelle stepped in front of him again and started unlacing his pants, gaze lowered towards her hands. Golden strands curled before her eyes, like a protective curtain shielding her from monsters like him.

His pants dropped to the ground. He brushed her hair behind her ear, and she suddenly met his gaze again.

“You know what to do.”

She always did, and so, with the grace of a princess, she lowered herself to her knees, and took his half-hard cock into her mouth.

For some reason, he let her set the pace. His hands stayed in tight fists by his side as her wet heat slowly surrounded his length, her tongue tracing the veins, sucking and swallowing around it ever so carefully.

Fuck, she was good at this. For some reason, despite him never allowing her to assume control, she had learned what made him go mad with lust. The gentle bobbing of her head, kissing the tip as if it were his lips, ever so slightly grazing her teeth across the sensitive skin.

Were she anyone else, he would commend her for her good work.

He did not want to give her the satisfaction of hearing his moans, either, but when she surged forward all of a sudden and he felt his head enter her tight throat, he couldn't help himself.

If she felt triumphant, she did not show.

Instead of picking up her ministrations - as he would have done, so close to having his enemy fall apart for him - she continued at her pace. Only that now she added her hands. One went to cover the parts of his cock not currently in her mouth, the other closed itself around his balls.

Perhaps it was a good thing he let her do as she wished, for his alcohol-dazed mind would not be good for anything at the moment.

“Stop.”

Were she to continue, he would spill into her mouth. And no matter how beautiful such a sight might have been on any other day, he knew he would not be able to come again. Not after three bottles.

“Stand up.”

His cock ached - in the cold, freed of her warm hole, so terribly close to release. Red and throbbing and swollen.

No , he screamed at himself. Not yet.

Cerelle once again stood before him, their eyes levelled, neither above or below. Her usually small lips were wet and swollen, coloured in such a dark pink they finally set themselves apart from her skin.

“Undress yourself.”

Within moments, the dark green dress had joined his own clothes on the ground.

She should have been cold, yet no shiver took ahold of her body, no tightening of her jaw indicated she suppressed her teeth clattering.

He stepped around her, their gazes never once breaking, and laid down on his bed.

“Sit on my lap.”

One day, he promised himself, he would manage to confuse her. Be done with her constant acceptance of everything he commanded, make her question if following it was the correct thing to do. One day.

Tonight, however, she simply did as he wanted. She climbed onto the bed, positioned her knees on either side of his hips, and sat down in front of his hard cock. Which, much to his dismay, only lightly grazed the skin of her arse. Had she sat down on it he would have been fine - providing him at least some relief - and had she not touched it at all would have also been manageable. But this light contact drove him mad.

He stared at her far longer than he should have. Something about her sitting above him…

“Ride me.” He burrowed his fingers into the linens of his bedding to manage at least a few coherent words. “You will not stop until your juices gush over me, and until my seed is spilled deep inside your womb.”

“Do you desire to plant a bastard inside me?” She raised herself up on her knees and took ahold of his cock. “Although you would have to abstain on fucking me for at least two moons after the birth. Would you survive that, my prince?”

He almost spilled just by hearing her say a crude word. The fingers tightening around his dick did not ease his strain.

“Just put it in,” he breathed out.

She didn't - at least, not immediately. Instead, she rubbed the tip slowly along her slit, pressing it against her pearl and soaking it in her wetness. Her face remained a blank slate of marble through it all.

Then she positioned her entrance above his dick, and he had to press his teeth so tightly together he feared they might crack, all in order not to moan.

Slowly, carefully, deliberately, she took in a slight breath and started sinking down on his cock. Her hand still encircled the lower half of it, and whether intentionally or not, moved along it, sending his mind spiralling with the doubled friction.

Her eyes stayed locked onto his face, but he knew he would not be able to withstand their blue storm. So he let his own wander downwards, and got lost in the image of her cunt greedily swallowing up his cock.

Everything inside him screamed to thrust up his hips, bury himself into her completely. His knuckles had turned white as snow with how tightly they were grabbing his sheets, all to avoid slamming her into his lap. He could not bear this pace any longer, had to take control, had to come, had to-

Her hips were flush with his. Seated completely onto his cock, he could not help but remark how… different it felt. Especially with her hands splayed out on his chest and the way her walls tightened around his length unconsciously.

Perhaps- No, no more after tonight. This was supposed to be a punishment.

She slowly raised herself up again, the squelch at the motion sending a tremble through his entire body. Once only the head remained inside her, she lowered herself again. Equally as slowly.

Had he been in control, he would have grabbed her hips and slammed her down onto his cock, burying himself up to the hilt, perhaps even accidentally brushing past that spot he had discovered a week ago. The only thing that had made her moan so far.

Eventually, she increased her speed, even rolled her hips. And at that moment, he realised what she was doing.

Cerelle did not go this slow to torture him - she did it to explore herself, and to, for once, truly feel her own reactions to sex.

It reminded him of their very first night together. When she had not been disgusted at taking his cock into her mouth, but had merely taken her time with it, tested the weight and taste of it, attempted to discover on her own which ways to pleasure him best.

She wanted to enjoy this as well. Even if she tried so hard not to show it.

All that thinking had distracted him quite thoroughly, so when Cerelle suddenly slammed down on his cock all on her own, he could neither control the almost instinctual thrust of his hips, nor the loud moan that echoed off the walls.

“Do you enjoy this?”

Her blue eyes burned in the night, swallowing the heat of the candle’s flames and turning it into something darker. Colder. They stared at him, piercing into his skin, burrowing through his flesh all the way to his heart. Her hair fell over her shoulders like a curtain of molten gold, and in that moment he wished for nothing more than for her to lean down and extend that shield to him.

“I cannot imagine you do. Giving up so much power, when all you ever wanted was absolute control.”

He had troubles following her words. Through the alcohol, the ever-quickening movements of her cunt, the painful pulsating of his cock - all of it drove him into madness.

What was wrong with him?

“Tell me, my prince .” She gasped between words. “Am I the first you commanded this of?”

He almost answered when she suddenly twisted her hips and squeezed her walls around him, and only years of experience prevented him from spilling like a clueless maiden.

“Few make it this far,” he managed to breathe out.

She smiled. “Does that mean I am special?”

“No. You will run away screaming one day, just like everyone else.”

“We shall see.”

Her speed almost rivalled the one he usually set, her nails sinking into the skin of his chest and almost certainly drawing blood. He welcomed the pain, even if it provided little relief.

She never closed her eyes, never looked away, and never moaned. He was close to taunting her about it, when a rather mean roll of her hips sent him tumbling over the edge.

His hands almost abandoned their tight grip on the mattress to hold onto her hips, desperate to stop her from moving, to feel the full impact of his release.

But she didn't - as he had commanded. For she had not come yet, and as long as she adhered to his rules fully and whole-heartedly, he would gladly suffer the overstimulation. As long as he could see her fall apart for him.

Her chest heaved, sweat pearling across her skin as she clearly and very desperately tried to finish this. Cerelle could never want to stay with him, she - like everyone else - would always find the quickest way to leave.

One of her hands reached down, the fingers circling her pearl in quick and precise strokes, brushing against this cock. That image almost made him come again.

Her lip trembled under the pressure of keeping in her moans as her walls finally tightened around him and her juices started gushing out past his dick. His own seed joined her fluids as the combined mass ran down their legs.

Their gasps mingled, sounding in the empty room, combining until he could not tell who got their breathing under control first.

Her fingers curled against his soft stomach.

“Are you satisfied with me?”

He stared at her. Sometimes, he wondered what she saw when she looked at him.

“You were acceptable.”

His hands closed around her hips and lifted her off his cock. She realised his intent, stepped onto the cold and snow-covered ground, and started dressing herself.

He felt as if he needed to say something. Something to close this night, to shove it into the back of his mind, to never think of it again.

“Tomorrow. Same time.”

He turned around and pulled a blanket over his nude body.

“As you command, Jon.”

Cerelle had not grown to respect him in this one interaction, he knew that. She had merely said his name to keep him up at night, to make a mess of his mind, to torture him with the what if.

He hated that it worked.

Chapter Text

He tried not to let that night's events affect him. And they didn't.

When Cerelle returned the following evening, he took her from behind for the first time in weeks, simply to prove to her how little she or her pleasure meant to him. He could survive without her pretty face.

Afterwards he permitted she lay on her back again. She said nothing.

What exactly his goal was with her now - now that she had come before and with him, now that she had even sat above him during sex - he wasn’t quite sure. Only that he would never let her go.

Five nights after their conversation , she had entered his chambers in a red dress again. Not the one she had worn across several moons and driven him into absolute madness with, but one even darker. She likely expected him to say something, yet he only pushed her onto the bed and fucked her with the garrment still clinging to her body.

Cerelle had never been afraid of him, he knew. She was absolutely and terrifyingly indifferent towards him. But his recent bursts of insanity - sucking her fingers still covered in their combined spent, and letting her sit on top - had seemingly given her a false sense of security.

She now let lone emotions slip through her perfectly curated facade. They weren't nice emotions, by any means, but he took whatever she gave him. Soaked it up. Became addicted to it.

There seemed to be neither rhyme nor reason to the way she reacted to his treatment of her. Some days she simply laid there, no matter if he simply fucked her or actually tried to make her come. All she did was stare at him with those burning blue eyes he knew he should be scared of.

Then there were some nights she reacted to everything . A touch to her breast, a bite into her neck, even the most gentlest of brushes to her pearl made her tremble and gasp beneath him.

Mostly, however, she did as he expected of her - muted, plain, and underwhelming.

He was close to asking her why she had come to him in the first place. Why she continued returning to him. Why she had shown up in King's Landing at all. Casterly Rock must have been safe and comfortable for her; only a fool would leave such a place voluntarily.

But then she would almost certainly demand he answer a question as well. And the kind of things she would likely want to know sent him spiralling into a nightmare with no return.

So he continued fucking her as if nothing was wrong.

Sometimes, he woke during the day - a truly dreadful experience - and the only thing it provided him was another opportunity to drink and hate himself. The constant snow storms outside his windows certainly did not improve his situation.

When was the last time he had shown up at court?

It had to have been weeks, if not even moons ago, otherwise he would have retained even a sliver of the memory. He was not missed, that he was certain of, but a member of his family would drag him into the public again sooner rather than later. They always did, and it never ended well.

Did Cerelle appear in court? Her grandfather was the Master of Coin and she was the whore of the Black Dragon, people had to be curious about her. Perhaps she entertained their fantasies and prejudices, perhaps she tried to prove she was not as bad as they made her seem. Or, perhaps, she hid from them as he did.

He looked at her face, sometimes, wishing to read her mind.

She laid beneath him, chest rising and lowering raggedly, the marks left by his teeth and tongue slowly darkening, promising to at least be there when she returned the coming day. Her hair stuck to her forehead, gold cascading around her head, brushing against his hands. She had closed her eyes when she had come, and now it almost seemed like she was asleep.

It looked… peaceful.

“Tell me a secret.”

Her gaze sat onto him slowly, flickering across his features, assessing his words. Its blue reminded him of nothing but her own eyes - a colour so rare, so terrifying.

“A secret,” he repeated hoarsely. “Something no one knows about you.”

His cock pulsed inside of her as she almost unnoticeably raised a brow. A challenge. He wanted to fuck her right again to show her her place.

“Tell me a secret,” he said one last time. “And I'll tell you one of mine.”

A smile played around her lips. “Alright.” She laid her hands onto her stomach. “My favourite flower is the snowdrop.”

“That doesn't count.”

He hoped she did not notice the way his hips had jerked forward at hearing her voice again. Or, at the very least, had mistaken it as an accident.

“You demanded something no one else knows about me.” Her smile had turned into something akin to a grin. “That is something no one knows. Now you.”

He wanted to throw her out of his bed at her brazenness. No, better yet, out of his room. Without her gown, to force her to walk naked down the Keep's halls, so that everyone would know she was a dirty whore.

(They already did. The courtiers always knew.)

“My favourite drink is ale, not wine.”

She did not react to his words, did not challenge them, did not claim someone to already know. And when he removed his dick from her cunt - only narrowly defeating the urge to stuff his escaping seed back into her - she dressed herself, curtsied, and disappeared without a word.

Snowdrop.

Not a flower one could easily gift a lady. Not that he wanted to, of course, least of all her, but he merely considered a thought. Winter had reigned for almost three years, and would last for even longer. Snowdrops bloomed in spring. And by then, Cerelle would be long gone.

He emptied the remaining ale from the flask on his bedside table, threw the bottle out of his window, and fell into a restless sleep.

The following weeks, they repeated this game.

He fucked her in ever more intimate positions, she reacted ever-increasingly to his ministrations, and afterwards, with his cock still shoved deep inside her cunt, they shared secrets. Breathed into the space between them, knowing, begging, pleading none of it to ever leave it.

In the beginning, their words carried little meaning. Favourite animals and clothes and colours, mentions of interesting stones and marbles found throughout the week, hidden places they heard about. Trivialities. He almost thought of stopping their conversations.

But ever so slowly, something changed.

Cerelle mentioned her childhood. He talked of memories of his siblings. She told tales of solitude, he of despair. Her blue eyes became emotionless as she talked. He did not hold back his tears.

She once owned a cat named Guinevere, with white fur and eyes like hers. Her grandfather took her away, claiming such things had no place in the chambers of a bastard. She had found her carcass in the kennel the following day. He had ripped off the drapes of his bed because he hated the colours. Black and red. No one had replaced them, and so the wooden posts stood uselessly around them.

Cerelle loved to paint. Hidden in one of the tunnels below Casterly Rock, she had worked on her art, far away from where her grandfather could find her. Rhaenys had taught him how to ride a horse. After none of the knights and stable boys had been able to keep him on the animals long enough, his sister had taken him to the tourney grounds and kept him there until he had figured it out.

She had never left Casterly Rock until coming here. Besides the few times he had trained with Rhaenys, he had never left the walls of King's Landing.

Her name day was close to the end of the year. The twenty-first day of the last moon. She apologised after saying it, claiming she did not know what had gotten into her. That it wasn't even a secret, despite it sometimes seeming like it. His was on the twenty-first of the third moon.

She wanted to see what was north of the Wall. He had been invited to come to Sunspear by Elia.

She had once been locked into her chambers for an entire year. He had once stood on his balcony's banister, thinking of killing himself.

“Why did you decide against it?”

“My father wants to be rid of me, but is too craven to do it himself. Why should I do his work for him?”

What started as a way to coax targets out of Cerelle, means to attack her, to punish her for her indifference, turned into… Yearning. For something better for both of them.

One night, after he had thrown her leg over his shoulder to fuck her even deeper and harder than before, she did not look him in the eyes as she spoke.

“My grandfather blames me for my mother's death. He wanted to use her for alliances, and he can’t do that with me. No one wants a bastard.”

“I should have been a girl. My father had this ideal in his head, of recreating the conquerors, of returning the glory to his house. He started a war for it. Now he only has me, and a realm destined for destruction.”

She shared her loneliness. He his hatred. Equals, despite their standings. Bastards, hidden from the world. Problems no one wanted to deal with.

She did not know who her father was. He had never met his mother's siblings.

The servants at Casterly Rock were instructed to avoid her. The servants in the Red Keep were afraid of him.

She killed someone once. He did not know how many bastards he had.

One night, he kneeled before her once more, hands buried into the soft of her hips, slamming his cock over and over again into her wetness. It ought to feel good, despite how quiet Cerelle remained. She was his whore, a simple set of holes for his pleasure, someone to discard once the need had faded.

Then why was he not able to cum? What was this strange longing he felt whenever he looked at her?

He sped up his thrusts, crashing so hard into her it hurt even him. The slapping of skin against skin echoed in his empty room, yet his grunts sounded wrong. Forced.

What was wrong with him?

He suddenly grabbed Cerelle's body and hauled her upwards, seating her onto his lap. She caught herself quickly, wrapping her arms around his back as he started slamming her down and onto his cock.

Her hair fell around them like a curtain, shielding them from the horrible outside. He buried his face in the crook of her neck, glad over the change in position and the opportunity to hide his tears. Her nails left indents in the skin of his back, perhaps even drawing blood. He welcomed the pain.

Moans and whines spilled from both their lips now, melting into each other, the sounds combining and becoming indiscernible. Prettier than music.

One of her hands glid upwards and found purchase in his short curls, tugging at them, tilting his head back until her lips pressed against his forehead. Her hips, ever so slightly but still, rolled on their own against his body.

It was the first time they peaked together.

They sat in the afterglow, neither daring to move, neither daring to break this strange peace they had found themselves in.

He felt her heartbeat underneath his lips.

“I have dreams.” Her words were barely above a whisper. “Of the past, and the future. I hear my mother’s screams as she dies, I see Robert Baratheon's head swept away by the water, I feel the cold that will kill us all. And I see you. A wolf with black scales. I have known I would meet you long before I came here.”

He traced her spine. Slowly, terrified she might break if he was too rough.

“I have no more secrets.”

He curled a strand of her hair around his finger. Soft as silk, golden as the sun.

“I will call for you when I have need of you again.”

She detached herself from him, and he liked to imagine the moment she let her hand linger on his skin meant something. Then the moment was gone, and the thought faded.

He did not watch as she dressed herself. As she pulled the purple gown over her body, tightened the laces on her back, slipped into her black shoes. Nor as she straightened her hair, wiped away the tears, and took a deep breath to focus herself.

The door fell close, and the candle went out.

He stumbled into a corner of his room and vomited up every scrap of food and alcohol he had consumed the past days. Retching and gagging until his throat burned and the only fluid passing his lips was spit.

Then he cried.

Chapter Text

The maester said he had a fever. Not dangerous, if uncommon in Targaryens. He merely had to stay in bed for a while, eat proper food, and take some medicine.

Jon was fine with this. Absolutely fine. Welcomed it, in fact. He had not planned to show himself around the castle anyways.

The only downside to his predicament was that he had time to think .

About Cerelle, and himself. Of their shared moments these past few weeks, hidden touches and disguised glances. She knew him now, better than his siblings even. He had spilled every secret, every fear, every thought that had ever passed his mind. And yet, despite it all, he still didn’t know why she had come here.

Oh, what she had told him had been secrets, in that he was certain. Each carrying as much weight and gravitas as he had demanded. But somehow, there was still more. Somehow, Cerelle's life had turned into a labyrinth of regret and fear and doubt, and no one, perhaps not even herself, could ever find the path to freedom.

He should not concern himself with all that. Starting these conversations had been a terrible, dumb, idiotic mistake, and he would ensure to never repeat it. Not with her, and not with anyone that came after.

Once he had recovered, he would fuck her properly again - violently, from behind, and without any attachments. He would take her to the Street of Silk to borrow her out to any lord, knight, and peasant passing by, until she either fell unconscious or ran away out of pure shame. Such a visit was long overdue, anyways.

That would finally break her perfect, precious, righteous facade, he was certain of it. She would come sobbing to him, and he could throw her out of his life for good. Never to waste another thought on her. Never remember her.

Never think of the feeling of her hands on his skin. Never again experience the smell of her hair; pines, flowers, moss. Never be able to dive into the sense of belonging -

He slammed his head against his bed's headboard. Again and again, desperate to force these thoughts out of his mind.

Suddenly, the door was ripped open.

“Heard you got sick,” Rhaenys said, not quite gloating, yet not concerned about him either.

He scrunched up his nose and dove back between his blankets. His sister walked over towards him, threw something at him, and let herself fall onto the mattress.

“I don't think it very fair that you left me alone at our grand family dinner .”

His hand darted out from beneath the pillows and blankets to grab the satchel, and as he opened it discovered it filled to the brim with various cakes and pastries.

“I am certain father was devastated,” he said and threw a small apple tart into his mouth.

“I would have suggested you ask him, but he left for the Wall this morning.”

“The Wall, huh? What’s his plan there?”

“Something about darkness and cold and the dead and everyone will die .”

“The usual, then.”

Jon continued to eat the contents of the satchel while listening to Rhaenys complain about the courtiers. Who had spread which rumour, whose father had raged against the crown in a drunken stupor, which marriage betrothals had been rebuffed because of what reason. Useless information, but he knew his sister needed it.

And he always got something out of it as well. Mainly food.

“They talked about your little whore as well.”

He choked on a lemon cake. After a lot of coughing and retching, he was finally able to put on a sour face.

“It has gotten a bit tiring after all these weeks,” Rhaenys continued. “ The prince must like her otherwise she'd be long gone. Tywin Lannister is vying for the throne, why else did he kill the Mad King? She enjoys being mistreated. What happens behind these doors? Someone should save her. The king will execute him sooner than later. ” She groaned. “Some of them also speculate on how exactly you fuck her, and they do not even have the shame to wait until I am out of earshot.”

Jon should not be bothered by this. These petty lords and ladies always talked, had done so long before the Seven Kingdoms existed, and would do so long after they were destroyed.

(Which might happen even sooner than any of them realised.)

And yet… He did not want them to be aware of Cerelle. She was his and his alone. His to fuck, his to look at, his to touch, his to-

The sweets he had just eaten threatened to make their way up his throat, and he desperately tried to think of something else. Anything else.

“I met her two days ago.” Rhaenys played with her hair - long and black and straight like her mother's, worn open most of the time. “She is pretty, and polite. Curtsied as if she were a proper lady when I greeted her, answered anything I asked for with a smile, and refused to speak ill of you. I can see why you like her.”

“I don't like her.”

“Sure. That is why you still fuck her after almost half a year.”

Why did he still keep her around? She had brought him nothing but grief and doubt and self-hatred. Her blue eyes burned through his very skin even when he so desperately tried to force them close, and every time he looked at them he fell deeper into the abyss.

“She's convenient. I don’t have to pay for her and she comes when I call.”

“If you say so. Though the whores in the city must be weeping at the loss.”

“Don't worry.” His hand tightened in the blankets wrapped around his body. “I intend to return to them very soon.”

“I do wonder, though, why she continues to return to you.” Rhaenys did not want to lay the topic to rest - which was typical of her. A conversation with his sister only ended once she decided it was over. “Certainly, she is a bastard, but she is beautiful, well-spoken, and one legitimisation away from becoming one of the most sought-after women in the kingdom. What does she hope to gain out of being your whore?”

“Maybe she likes my cock. It would be pretty difficult to find someone that would fuck her like I do.”

“And how did she get convinced to come to you in the first place?”

“Her grandfather hates her. Maybe she wanted to punish him in some way.”

Jon despised himself. He should not know such a thing about Cerelle- about his whore . She was there to please him, to take away his worries, not add her own to the endless pit of despair he did not even try to claw his way out of anymore. Who cared if Tywin Lannister disliked his granddaughter? That man had killed Jon’s grandfather, the king .

(Not that anyone truly mourned that madman, least of all him or his father. Still - his point stood.)

He couldn’t continue talking about her, couldn't wonder what she was doing right now, if she missed him as he missed her.

“How is your knight?” he quickly asked. “Are you two taking advantage of father’s absence?”

He knew this had been a dirty move, and he felt terrible at seeing Rhaenys’ almost panicked expression, but he had not been able to think of anything else that could distract her.

Jon Wylde was a second son of a second son of a Stormlord, whose entire family had been deeply loyal to Robert Baratheon, both before, during, and after the failed uprising, and had only bent the knee once the entirety of House Baratheon had been wiped from the history books. 

The knight had garnered his sister’s attention during a visit to the capital, which resulted in the mutual infatuation that haunted them both. Neither acted on their feelings, neither attempted to go beyond the polite smiles and stolen glances they shared when no one else was looking, but it was clear to see how desperately they wanted to be with each other.

Which was nonsense. Rhaenys was a Targaryen princess and would never be permitted to marry an insignificant and traitorous knight, no matter how much she would beg their father to. If she was wed, it would be to someone of high status like Willas Tyrell or whichever Darry was Lord Paramount of the Riverlands at the moment. Something to reward an ally, never to control an enemy.

Such was the curse Rhaegar had laid upon all his children, it seemed - the desire for a partner they could never have. Rhaenys with her knight, Aegon with his lordly companions, and Jon with his whores.

“How would I be taking advantage of father’s absence?” Rhaenys said with a stone-still look. “Nothing has happened, and nothing will happen.”

Jon would never be able to show this kind of restraint.

“So it's complete coincidence I saw him in the gardens two days past?”

She never got to formulate a response, because in that moment an explosion shook the building to its core.

All thoughts about whores and knights and courtly twats were forgotten as Rhaenys jumped up and ran towards the door, and even Jon stood up from the bed - more in confusion that with a true conviction to do something - but interrupting them both was the Kingsguard that threw open the door.

“Stay inside, both of you,” Ser Jaime shouted. “Lock the door until we know what happened.”

He heard screams and a quiet rumbling, then the old oak snapped shut. Rhaenys hesitated, before she turned the key in the lock.

“What is going on?” His voice trembled.

“I think…” Rhaenys still stood by the door. “I do not know. Nothing good.”

Jon's heart pounded in his chest, the food in his stomach heavy and constantly threatening to rise up his throat.

He needed ale, or wine even, anything to get him through this. He could not be left with his thoughts, with the uncertainty of the situation. To hell with his sickness. Perhaps the alcohol would heal him quicker, what did the maester know of his body!

And so they waited. Rhaenys stood by the door like a statue, he by the cabinet, emptying one, then two, then three bottles.

Perhaps his sister would want to talk to bridge the time, would want him to ease her fears, even ruminate on what happened. Yet she stayed quiet all throughout, and nothing had scared Jon more in his life.

When the knock sounded on the door, he startled so heavily the half-emptied bottle of Arbour Gold slipped from his fingers and shattered on the ground.

Rhaenys hurriedly unlocked and opened it, yet he only stared at the shards by his feet.

“My princess, my prince, I come bearing grave news.” Ser Arthur Dayne's deep, baritone voice always made him hard. “Someone used wildfire to burn down the Tower of the Hand.”

“What?” Rhaenys exclaimed. “Why would- Who would do such a thing?”

“Perhaps an assassination attempt by the rebels. Yet rest assured, no member of the royal family was anywhere near the explosion. Your brother, mother, and uncle are safe.”

Wildfire.

Rumour had it that his grandfather had planted thousands of caches of it underneath the city, and that he had wanted to light them just before his death to drag the invading armies with him to the Seven Hells. It had not happened, of course, yet whether Tywin Lannister had spoken true about them or merely meant to save his own skin after killing the Mad King he did not know.

“We are making preparations to send Prince Aegon to Dragonstone for safekeeping until the perpetrator has been found,” the knight continued. “It would be best if you joined him.”

“What if that is the assassin's plan? To chase us out of the city only to murder us on the journey? Or on Dragonstone, even. The castle is far less protected than the Red Keep.” Rhaenys asked.

“Princess, that is highly unlikely.”

Jon had to agree with the Lord Commander. Rhaella and Daenerys had been living on that miserable speck in the ocean for years now, and the most he heard from his aunt was how boring it was. No one ever considered Dragonstone.

“Still.” Rhaenys lifted her chin. “The optics of the royal family fleeing such a minor disaster cannot turn out well. Someone needs to hold position in the city, and that will be me. Jon stays as well.”

“Great idea.”

It was the first time in hours Jon had said a word, yet considering Ser Arthur's dour look it could not have been the correct words. Not that the knight had ever liked him.

“Send Aegon and Viserys to my grandmother for a fortnight. Mask it as a visit that has long been planned yet only now announced, and make sure to emphasize a definitive return date. Me and Jon Connington will lead the country during this time.”

Suddenly, Ser Arthur looked… almost ashamed. “I apologise, princess, for forgetting to mention it prior, but the Hand of the King has died in the fire.”

Rhaenys was quiet.

Jon did not pay attention to anything else the knight said, too focused was he on his sister's silence.

“Do you seriously care about that?” Jon asked once they were alone again. “As if any of us give a shit about father's friend .”

“No, you do not understand. I was supposed to be with him today, not with you. He wanted me to follow him somewhere, said we needed to discuss something.” Rhaenys hands tightened in her red dress. “I was supposed to die in that fire.”

Chapter Text

He should not do this.

He was the prince, who would stop him?

It was wrong.

No one would know.

She would never return to him were she to discover him.

She had no choice. She was his .

Cerelle did herself a disservice, wearing her hair open each and every time she came to his chambers, for it looked far, far better whenever she braided and decorated it with nets and pins and flowers.

Everyone at court would have realised how frequently she reused dresses. He counted nine in total, eight of which she had also worn when meeting him. An intricate blue one, two red ones, three green ones, two normal blue ones, and a purple dress. Why he liked the blue ones best, he could not say.

She stayed alone, for the most part. Maybe it was her own doing, considering she did not necessarily even try to speak to anyone, yet perhaps it was the fault of the courtiers, who stared and whispered and turned away whenever she passed. He wanted to fuck Cerelle right there in front of them, and force them to watch.

He hated the gardens, especially during winter, especially when one's footsteps could easily be tracked in the powdered snow. Cerelle, seemingly, did not, considering how much time she spent out here. She read, she sewed, she sang.

It was that last thing that almost betrayed his cover.

The queen's heart

is a fragile thing,

cursed be

who tears it apart.

Behind iron bars

is where she keeps it,

locked and hidden

to save it from scars.

Only his touch

did reach beyond,

he sneaked his way in

clawed himself close.

And the queen only realised

once it was too late.

Clear as ice, light as snow, dangerous as the cold.

He got his hands on one of the handkerchiefs she embroidered. Frequently, he took it out of his pocket, and let his fingers run across the stitchings - a golden lion and a black wolf - as he watched her.

Sometimes, she looked over her shoulder, or stared at a wall as if she knew he were there. Then she turned around, and continued about her day.

If she talked to people - if - it was because someone approached her and struck up a conversation on their own. Cerelle never did, even if she smilingly and politely engaged with whatever strange topic was brought to her.

The courtiers treated her like an exotic animal, almost, yet she seemed blind to it. There were several moments he had almost jumped out of his hiding spot to punch a lord for touching her inappropriately, or a lady for sniggering behind her back.

Ser Jaime searched her out more often than anyone else. Certainly, he was her uncle, yet also a knight of the Kingsguard who ought to be on duty instead of spending time with a niece he had only met half a year ago.

They talked about Casterly Rock, her life there compared to his, and of their thoughts on King’s Landing and the Red Keep. She told him of the things she had discovered here, small nooks and abandoned hallways and a tree by the cliff from which one had a beautiful view of the sea.

(Jon knew most of what she was referring to, of course, having been there when she had discovered them.)

Cerelle listened intently when Ser Jaime told her of all the places in the Seven Kingdoms he had accompanied the king to, asked questions and demanded details Jon wondered how anyone could remember.

She acted so differently during these times. A smile here, a chuckle there, and then her eyes . There was a strange sparkle to them, a light glowing within that icy blue that seemed to melt the snowflakes falling around them. A part of him yearned to have her look at him this way, yet he knew she never would. And that was fine.

Completely.

Absolutely.

They talked about him.

“Do you like going there?”

“It doesn't matter.”

“Of course it does.” Ser Jaime laid a hand on her arm to stop her from walking away. “You're not a whore, you're a Lannister. Your feelings on this do matter.”

“Try telling that to grandfather.”

“If you need me to kill him, simply say the word.”

Cerelle laughed, and even across the distance, even through the trees and bushes, the sound caused a whirlwind in Jon's mind.

“Maybe wait until he is king, the poets would far prefer were you and grandfather both kingslayers.”

The certainty with which she said king sent a shiver down his back.

He couldn't be king, he- Aegon was heir, and after him his children, once he had them. Then the Dornish would ensure Rhaenys would follow in the line of succession, or her children. No one would want a bastard on the Iron Throne.

And yet… Cerelle had said it with such conviction, as if she was sure he would inherit his father's crown one day. Had she seen it in one of her dreams? Had the gods warned her of the disaster that would befall the realm, the one that would end with him in the one position he would never desire?

He couldn't be king. That would mean that both of his siblings had to die, and he would never be able to survive such a thing.

“Does he treat you well?” Ser Jaime asked.

“He treats me as well as he can.”

Jon had almost missed it, had already tried to roll up in his hideout to nap for a few hours, but when his gaze passed over them again, he saw the dagger the knight pressed into Cerelle's hands.

“Just in case.”

He tried to forget what he heard in their conversations as he listened to her songs, as he cradled the handkerchief, as he watched her sit in the snow and ice beneath her tree. Yet he was never able to.

The library provided him with fewer and fewer hiding spots after every day she had worked there - something that had to make his father very proud. Jon supposed he had to be grateful he did not stumble across mountains of books with every step he took. And at least her melodic voice, singing of impossible love and the unavoidably cold always managed to lull him to sleep.

The sept was the only place he did not dare follow her to. Every morning, he waited in front of the doors, not even attempting to listen to the happenings on the inside.

What she did there, what she begged for, did not concern him.

Tywin Lannister sometimes called her to him. It had taken Jon a while to find the correct path through the passageways to listen in to their conversations, and he still hated he could not truly see them besides some shadows passing past his hideout in the walls.

“I apologise, grandfather. I do not know-”

“That is your only purpose , you insolent child!” Something hard slammed against what he assumed to be a table. “A bastard is good for nothing else, and you are not even capable of it.”

“I am trying, I swear-”

“Try harder .”

Cloth ruffling, then a muffled sound he couldn't quite place. Maybe something falling onto a carpet.

“Look at yourself. I am not surprised why he continues to spurn you - weak, gaunt, constantly covering up. How could such a pathetic thing like you ever manage to seduce a prince?”

“I am doing everything he demands of me, just as you ordered me to. What am I supposed to do when he doesn't want to see me?”

Silence. Then the Old Lion said with a lowered voice, “I truly wonder sometimes which imbecile my daughter spread her legs for to cause something like you to come out of it. You are a shame on the Lannister name.” He continued speaking, yet it was far too quiet for Jon to be able to make out the words.

“Yes, grandfather.”

Footsteps, then a door falling shut.

Jon wondered, sometimes, which Cerelle was the real one. The emotionless shell he had met that very first night? The sarcastic and almost defiant woman she had turned into across their nights together? The scared voice that had cowered before her grandfather? Or the strange person that had smiled and laughed at her uncle's words, the one he almost hadn't recognised?

He discovered her chambers one evening.

It was bound to happen, considering how much he followed her around, yet he was still surprised at how long it had taken him.

(Likely because he either fell asleep while watching her, or returned to his chambers to get another drink.)

The singular room she lived in was small and not something he would have expected be given to the daughter of a great house, even if she was a bastard. A narrow bed, a cupboard, and a chair in front of a small table were all she had.

Should he pity her?

Cerelle hummed when she brushed her hair, each time a different tune, most of which he didn't recognise. She braided her golden curls before she went to bed, dressed in a simple white gown, and kept the window open the entire night.

He liked watching her sleep. It seemed peaceful, her mind not haunted by the kinds of phantoms he tried so desperately to drown in each new bottle of ale. If she awoke, she took a sip of water from the goblet beside her bed, and laid back down.

Her body seemed too perfect, even in the low light of the single candle she lit each morning and evening. No scars, no bruises, no arm slightly longer than the other. Yes, her chest was almost flat, and even through the small hole in the wall he could count each and every bone her skin molded around, but those were minor problems.

One night, he walked through the gardens on his own.

Why, he could not say.

Perhaps to clear his head.

Perhaps to distract himself from Cerelle.

Perhaps to lie down in the snow and freeze to death.

The darkness ought to annoy, to unsettle him, even, yet he felt calm in a way he had never before. Which was strange - the gardens were just as cold and abandoned as his chambers, the snowflakes collecting in his curls just as they did when he sat on his balcony. It should be miserable. It should make him want to jump off the cliffs.

And yet…

And yet…

He slowly started to understand why Cerelle liked it here.

A light caught his gaze. He looked over, moved closer to the tree and the sparkling beneath. And then he saw them.

Moondusts . Small, blue flowers the shape of stars, which seemed as if sprinkled with glowing stardust in the light of the moon. One of only a few plants capable of blooming during winter.

He knelt before them. Stared. Let his fingers run along the petals.

What he did then was stupid and dumb and marked him out as having gone truly mad. There needed to be one insane Targaryen every generation, he supposed.

He pressed the flowers against his chest as he ran towards his room, grabbed a vase along the way, and almost dropped it all the moment the door slammed shut behind him. Whatever was in the pot before was quickly discarded as he carefully let each moondust glide into the vase. One after the other, arranging them in a way that would hopefully look appealing.

Then he waited.

Slowly, the sun crawled across the horizon, yet even though he knew she was already awake, that she was likely already making her way towards the kitchens, he still waited. Just to be sure.

No one could see him with flowers in hand - that would surely give his reputation the rest - so he made his way through Maegor's secret tunnels. Luckily, her room was empty once he reached it.

It took him almost an hour to find the perfect spot for the vase, and even then he wasn't happy with it. The moondusts should stand in the chambers of a princess, surrounded by gold and luxury and excess, not in the dusty room of a servant with a dagger lying right next to it.

He wanted nothing more than to find her, to follow her throughout the day and see which courtiers he could develop a new hatred against, but he could not risk missing her reaction. And so he quickly crawled back into the tunnel next to her room, and waited.

Around noon, he almost fell asleep. Yet one decisive hit to his own face wiped away any sense of exhaustion he might have felt.

Then, the sun slowly started to set, and the door opened.

Jon immediately set up straighter. He pressed his eye to the hole to not miss a single emotion passing across her face.

Cerelle stood, and stared.

Slowly, she walked towards the small table, laid the books she had been carrying down upon it, and lifted her hands to float beside the blue flowers.

She did not move for a long, long time.

Then, suddenly, as if stung by a scorpion, she grabbed one of the moondusts and hurried towards the window. In the low light of the rising moon, the flower started to sparkle, and a light smile spread on her face.

And somehow, Jon did not fall unconscious from that.

Cerelle twirled the flower between her fingers, her steps turning lighter and almost happier, so to say, as she went through the usual steps to prepare herself for bed. She still smiled and looked at the moondusts as she brushed and braided her hair, as she slipped into her white nightdress, and even as she laid down to sleep.

Rhaenys had once told him that women liked to be surprised by little things - jewelry, kisses, and, yes, flowers, but he had never imagined that this would apply to Cerelle, too.

Well, at least not the impassive, cold-hearted Cerelle he had gotten to know during those first few weeks in his bed.

But this…

He could use this.

The following days, he continued to trail after her; mostly through the tunnels, yet sometimes forced to hide behind bushes and furniture. Someone else might have felt humiliated by such a thing, yet he had long grown beyond such feelings.

Especially with her.

One day, Cerelle emerged from her room wearing a thick, woolen dress, a fur lined cloak, and gloves, and he immediately knew something interesting was about to happen.

She did not dress this way when merely strolling the gardens. No, today she was headed somewhere else.

And that somewhere… were the stables.

She had mentioned she owned a horse - once, during those nights in his bed when both of them had spilled the very kinds of secrets they would have never told another. And should have not even told each other. He supposed it only made sense she had brought the animal with her, that she might have even ridden it on the way to King's Landing instead of hiding in a carriage.

One last act of freedom.

The stables provided him little cover, so he had to walk through the wide, open space between the pens as if he had always meant to be there.

He could look for his siblings’ horses, or try to find a stable hand to help distract himself from Cerelle. Perhaps what he needed to banish her from his thoughts was a proper fucking, without any feelings or emotions.

One of the stall doors further ahead stood open. Jon walked towards it, hoping to find someone to let out his frustrations on, yet the moment he entered, a horse reared up in front of him. Hastily, he stumbled backward, yet the alcoholic haze still on his mind made him quickly lose his footing and fall to the ground with such force his vision turned black for a heartbeat.

Someone said something.

Air slowly re-entered his lungs. He blinked a few times before his eyes were finally able to focus once more-

Cerelle stood above him, one hand in the silvery mane of a white horse, the other around its bridle. A thousand emotions flashed across her face, none staying long enough for Jon to discern a singular thought, yet each one sending pure terror straight to his heart. Somehow, within this singular moment they shared, she held his life within her hand.

Then something hardened in her gaze. The blue of her eyes transformed not into hatred or anger, but a thing much more real, much more dreadful.

“Make sure you don’t step on him, Starlight.” Even as she lifted her chin, she never looked away from him. “He only likes it done to others. Not to himself.”

And with that, she led her horse past his form still frozen to the ground, and out of the stables.

He laid there for gods only knew how long. He didn’t move, didn’t fall asleep, didn’t even notice when one of the stable boys fussed about him all worriedly. All he could do was stare at the ceiling above him as her words echoed in his head. As her gaze burned itself into his mind.

She had not despised his presence. She had also not been apologetic for what her horse had done. She had not screamed at him for following her. She had also not been particularly concerned about his fall. She had not enjoyed standing above him. She had also not hated it.

He stumbled through the halls of the Keep.

What did Cerelle want from him? What could be so important to her she did not fear him even when he treated her horribly? Why did she continue to return even after being hit, beated, abused? How did she not care ?

He slipped into one of the hidden passageways, and leaned against the wall.

She haunted him. There was no other word for it, no other explanation for the way her spectre followed him wherever he went, no other reason for why he could be so obsessed with some whore. She had put some sort of spell on him, cursed him to fall for her, to be able to think of nothing and no one beside her.

It could not continue this way, he had to stop-

A groan slipped his lips as he palmed himself through his breeches. His cock throbbed at the mere thought of Cerelle, and yet he knew he would not be able to make it to her in time.

Perhaps he also did not want to give her the satisfaction.

Faster than should be possible in his current state, he had unlaced his pants and pushed them down just far enough to free his dick, quickly giving it a long and hard tug. A part of his mind - the part that was still concerned with how he was perceived - tried to hold in the moan in the fear someone would hear, yet the alcohol in his blood washed away any doubt. He could not concern himself with such things.

Beating himself off without any lubrication burned so terribly, yet he couldn’t stop . All that was on his mind were Cerelle’s icy blue eyes, staring down at him, assessing him with such cold indifference he had never seen in anyone. She would likely laugh at him were she to see him now - whining and groaning, with sweat running down his forehead as his fist moved up and down his hard length in desperate motions.

He could not even remember the last time he had to take care of an erection himself. Usually, he simply found a whore or a servant to ease his need, his cock needing something wet and warm to spill in. But now…

Gods , his father was right. He was truly pathetic.

His moans echoed down the tight passageway as he pressed Cerelle’s handkerchief against his mouth and inhaled what was left of her scent. Some precum was already escaping his tip and he desperately spread it around his skin, yearning, begging, pleading to cum.

The veins throbbed underneath his fingers, but he almost did not notice. His hand pressed tighter and tighter, closing around his cock, desperate to make this feeling go away, to banish those thoughts from his mind.

What if Cerelle were here? What if this were her hand on his dick? Could he convince her to be as brutal as he needed her to be? Whenever he had let her take charge, she had been so soft and slow, but the way she had looked at him in the stables… Gods, if only… If it were not about her pleasure, if the only thing she had to use were her fingers, could she torture him? Could she finally let go the way he knew she wanted to? Could she be willing to take revenge-

He moaned, loud enough to deafen even himself, as his hips surged forward and his seed spilled against the wall opposite him. His hand didn’t stop, it kept on going far beyond any sense of comfort or pleasure, only chasing the pain he knew he deserved so terribly.

His breath came in short bursts, his lungs burned, and his heart beat so quickly he feared it might rip his chest apart. And still he was so desperate - if only he knew what for.

Perhaps had he drunken less, he would have known his next move to be an indicator of his ever-growing insanity. Perhaps had he drunken more , he would not have even attempted it.

And yet nothing inside him protested as he waited in the shadows across her door, his entire body calm and ready.

He knew what he had to do.

She returned eventually, yet still he waited. Waited until he could not anymore, until he was convinced she had finished with her nightly routine. Then, he emerged.

Doubt or regret or anxiety had no place in his mind as he threw open her door only to smash it close behind him, and not even the genuine shock - and perhaps even fear, something that would have made him shout in glee a mere moon's turn ago - were able to stop him from grabbing her shoulders and throwing her down onto her bed.

“If you tell another soul of what is about to happen,” he growled, kneeling above her body, “I will feed you to the wolves.”

Besides the remnants of terror in her blue eyes and the sheer and utter confusion slowly taking its place, Cerelle gave no response. And so he knelt beside the bed, dragged her hips to its edge, pushed up her nightgown, and licked a long stripe across her cunt.

The sharp breath she took in only pushed him further, and so he quickly started sucking on her pearl.

This time she moaned.

He could count on one hand the amount of times he had gone down on a woman - whores did not expect it, and noble women were not even aware one could do it. Cerelle might belong to either of these groups, but he did not care right now.

For when he grabbed her thighs to keep her in place as he started plunging his tongue into her hole, she almost grabbed his hair. And simply knowing that he finally found something to break her made him get lost in her.

She tasted good - much better than the whore who had taught him this act when he had been four and ten. Cerelle's juices reminded him of snow and clear ice, and of some strange spice he had forgotten the name of. He could not stop even were someone trying to force him to - she was far too addicting .

His tongue wandered upwards again to give small and sparse licks to her pearl. Mostly to allow himself to relax his jaw, yet when she suddenly mewled and her hips started bucking forward, he could do little but smile against her skin.

He laid kisses onto her cunt, then trailed his lips along her thigh. Her skin was so beautifully soft underneath him, but that had to wait for another time, because gods , it had barely been a moment and he already missed her taste.

She seemed to agree when a careful hand found purchase in his curls, and slowly started dragging him towards her core again. He decided to oblige her - just this one time.

Small trickles of her juices spilled out of her every time the flat of his tongue pressed against her pearl, or when his lips traced the edges of her hole, but he did not allow any of it to fall onto the bed or the floor below. He drank up every last drop of her, as if it were the only thing keeping him alive.

Her legs tightened around his head, pressing his face closer to her core. A moan almost slipped past his lips. To suppress it, he hastily let his teeth graze across Cerelle's pearl-

“ J-Jon. ”

The word was barely above a whisper, and had she not gripped his curls so tightly the pain returned him to reality for a moment, he might have missed it.

He bit down on her bud, and she moaned the loudest he had ever heard from her.

This had done something to him, cursed him, perhaps, for he was not capable of rational thought afterwards. His body acted all on its own, plunging his tongue back into her hole and fucking her with it as tightly and as fiercly as he could. The pain of straining his jaw like this did not even reach his brain anymore.

He chased her release, chased whatever feeling this act brought with it. She became all he was, all he desired, all he despaired to own. Her taste permeated his mouth, her scent burying its claws into his mind until he almost chanted her name. All he had left to want was her cum.

As if she had heard his wish, her nails suddenly cut across his scalp and her walls tightened around his tongue. He lapped up everything flooding out of her, swallowing so quickly he almost choked on it. She trembled in his arms, yet he held her tightly, not allowing her to escape his grasp, keeping her close, keeping her with him.

Gods, what had he done?

The imprints his fingers had left on her thighs would surely bruise. He quickly wiped what was left of her cum and his spit off his face, swearing to burn the shirt as soon as he had returned to his rooms.

Yet when he jumped up, ready to run, a soft hand laid itself on his.

And despite knowing better, he met her gaze.

A blue as bright as the full moon shining in through the window, as deep as the seas at the edge of the world, as cursed as the lands of the high north.

She stared at him. Then-

“Thank you for the flowers.”

He almost fell to his knees before her.

“How-”

Cerelle smiled, something melancholic playing across her lips. “You're the only one who would do something like that for me.”

A beat passed.

“Tomorrow. Same time.”

Then he fled.

Chapter Text

Jon waited, poised by the door, every fibre of his being set to strike. She would not take him off-guard again - not this time. He would control her.

Now, and for the rest of time.

She was his.

The door opened, and faster than he had thought possible with three flasks of ale in his blood, his hand had closed around her arm and yanked her inside, throwing the old oak close behind them. He quickly dragged her after himself, yet instead of throwing her on the floor or the bed - as he had done so often before - he pushed her into a chair.

She wasn't scared - of course not - so he allowed himself to at least enjoy the confusion across her face.

He took his place on the opposite end of the table. This physical separation was needed, he knew, to achieve his goals tonight.

Cerelle straightened her back, folded her hands in her lap, lifted her chin in defiance.

Oh, how he despised her.

“Why are you here?”

“You told me to come, my prince. Or do you not remember?”

“Quit the games.” He slammed his hands on the table, making the bottles shake. “Half a year you have been here now, half a year you have been torturing me with your pretty blue eyes. What do you want with me?”

“Nothing.” The world almost made him stumble back. “My grandfather commanded me to obey the king, and the king commanded me to obey every word you say. I am simply being a good and proper servant.”

“Why would you choose to listen to them?”

“I am a bastard, my prince. There is little else I could have done.”

He buried his nails into the wood, soaked in years of ale and cum and blood.

“Do not pretend as if you know more about this than me,” he growled. “All you did your whole life was hide away in a tower like some fair and perfect princess, while I had to endure the constant hatred and disgust thrown at me simply due to the circumstances of my birth.”

“Believe me, my prince.” Her eyes darkened ever so slightly. “I would have gladly traded lives with you.”

His lip trembled. “Do not evade my question. You are the only one who has held out in my bed for this long, anyone else would have long disappeared after everything I put them through. So why not you?”

“Are you this desperate to get rid of me? You seemed quite fond of my company last night.”

“Answer the-”

“I have wondered this every night since that very first.” Her smile might have seemed genuine to the unassuming, yet he knew. “If you hate me so, why not get rid of me? You had no trouble with my predecessors. So why not me?”

Why not her?

Why not her?

Why not her?

“Would you like to know what I think?” She rose from her chair, ever so slowly, never breaking eye contact, as if ready to flee at one wrong move from him. “I think I excite you. I am the one problem you cannot solve, the one obstacle you cannot pass, the one riddle you are unable to find an answer to.” Her hands traced the table between them, before she slowly lifted herself upon the wood. “Everyone else wears their feelings towards you on their sleeve - the courtiers’ hatred, your siblings’ love, your father's disappointment. Except for me.”

Her voice had dropped so low, and had taken on a strange quality he could not quite place. Seduction , perhaps, yet any and all contemplation about her words or their message were wiped cleanly away as she started crawling towards him .

“What are you doing?”

Cerelle giggled. “I think you enjoy the game.” She mindlessly pushed away any bottles in her path, not reacting in the slightest once they shattered on the ground. “What is life without a little challenge, after all? Yours had become so boring before I arrived, you needed me. You still do, in fact.”

Against his better judgement, he took a step back as she came closer. Yet something about the sight of her on her hands and knees, hair spilling over her shoulders and dragging along the table, eyes burning brighter than all the fires in the world, made him so terribly afraid.

(And so terribly horny as well.)

“I see the way you look at me.” She had almost reached him. “Desire, of course. Lust, especially. But there is something else, some strange emotion I cannot quite place. Tell me, Prince Jon - what it is?”

And it was only that - her calling him by his title and name both - that made him escape the hold her voice had on him, if only for a moment. Yet when he tried to stumble away, his legs hit the edge of his chair and he fell backward into it.

Cerelle giggled. “Oh, Jon.” She slowly lifted a hand and let it hover over his skin. “We know each other's bodies, inside and out. We know each other’s fears, we know each other's dreams. Is it truly too much to ask for an answer to one simple question?”

“Your question has no answer.”

How he had managed to speak when he was so enveloped in her scent and eyes and being , remained a mystery to him.

“If you yourself don’t know, how am I meant to serve you?” Her fingers began trailing along his jaw. “By now, you must have figured out that I am playing role after role here, all for your pleasure. Help me be the perfect little whore for you, and you will never have to question my existence again.”

Everything inside him screamed to move, to run, to slam her down on the floor and fuck her so hard she would never forget who was in charge. Yet she had him trapped in her spell, sinking deeper and deeper the longer he stared into those stormy blue eyes.

“Has anyone ever told you how beautiful you are?” Cerelle whispered. “It’s a shame you make me turn away from you so often.”

“ Liar ,” was all he managed to respond.

She laughed, and he hated what it did to his cock. “Oh, Jon.” (He hated the sound of his name from her mouth even more.) “I am not out to manipulate you by showering you in fake niceties and compliments. You already own me. There is nothing for me to achieve by telling you how truly wonderful you look.”

Her fingers traced the skin above his throat, and he almost choked on the moan.

“Please.” Her lip trembled. “Do not push me away.”

He moved - why, he did not know, for what, he did not know. Perhaps to punch her, to fuck her, to run out the door, to jump off the balcony, to call for his kingsguard to kill her.

He managed to fulfil none of these plans, for not a moment later, Cerelle had jumped into his lap, straddled his waist, and pressed her bare cunt onto his clothed dick.

This time, his moan sounded loud and clear throughout the room.

Cerelle was pressed up tightly against him, chest against chest, hands cradling his face and tracing the lines of his mouth, barely any space left between their faces, her breath fanning across his cheek.

“Do you think I have not seen the way you look at me?” Ever so slowly, her hips began rolling against his, grinding into him. “How you stare at my lips every time I am close to you? How your own mouth parts ever so slightly, as if only waiting to devour me? How you hunger for my taste?”

“I do no such things!”

He grabbed ahold of Cerelle's hips, desperate to take control of the situation, yet she quickly had her hand buried in his hair, tipping his head back and tearing at his skull.

“Either you are lying to me, or to yourself.” Her smile burned so bright it could melt snow. “I think it's the latter.”

“You know nothing about me.”

She ground into his rock-hard dick in response. “Your little friend is saying something different.” Her juices soaked the rough fabric between them. “You have been fucking me for over half a year, Jon. I know everything about you.”

“Then you should know I do not enjoy being on the bottom,” he growled.

The hand that had cradled his face suddenly disappeared, then it tore at the laces of his breeches, gripped his cock to drag it free, and not a moment later he was enveloped within her tight, wet heat.

The moan he let out was downright unholy .

Cerelle immediately set a quick pace, riding him so fiercely and passionately he thought he had to be dreaming. Yet her fingers still held onto his hair tightly.

“You can deny it all you wish,” she said, “but I can see you for who you really are. You enjoy this, just as any man would. You enjoy looking at me, just as any man would.” She leaned in closer, if that was even possible anymore. “And you would enjoy kissing me, just as any man would.”

He grabbed her hips and slammed her down on his cock, again and again, desperate to shut her up and banish the thoughts she awakened in him, yet Cerelle only laughed.

“You feel so good .” Her head dropped back to reveal her long and pale throat. “I could not imagine anyone fucking me better than you do.”

“Quit these games,” he spat out, slipping his hands beneath her dress to grab at the flesh of her arse.

She panted as she looked back at him. Her pupils were blown so wide barely any blue was left, her cheeks turned pink, her golden curls jumping up and down with each thrust of their hips.

“Do you want to see what you are doing to me?”

The fingers in his hair tightened and pulled his head to look downward, to where she had lifted up her skirt to reveal his dick repeatedly slamming into her cunt. He moaned at the sight, and only barely restrained himself from letting his hands run through her wetness.

“This all could be so easy,” she continued, her breath fanning across his ear as her walls spasmed around his cock. “If it is not kisses and affection you want, then this should be enough. You inside me, devouring my body until I am but an empty shell for you to discard.”

Fuck, he could not think straight . Every twist of her hips, every tightening of her cunt, every squelch of her wetness being punched out of her sent him further down a never-ending spiral. He had to stop her, had to take control, had to-

Her lips traced his ear, then his jaw, yet she never ceded in her quick and punishing movements.

“I could be anything you want,” Cerelle whispered, barely audible above the sound of their fucking. “Whore.” She pulled at his hair. “Servant.” She tilted her hips and almost dragged him up with her. “Queen. Just say the word and I will be yours. Just as you desire me, Jon .”

He buried his teeth in her shoulder and spilled deep within her.

His hips kept bucking upward even long past any sense of comfort had passed, spurred on by Cerelle continuing to ride him as if he were a wild stallion.

Eventually, he buried his fingers so tight in her flesh she had no choice but to slow her movements. Then she sat above him, cock still buried deep within her cunt, breath coming in short bursts, and waited.

“You are my whore ,” he growled. “And you will never attempt something like this again.

“As you say, my prince.” Oh, how he hated her stupid smile. “Anything else you wish of me?”

“When you return tomorrow-” He pressed one hand against the back of her neck to force her face closer to his- “Pretend to care. About me, about your looks, about what happens to you inside this room. Make an effort, Cerelle.”

How long had it been since he had spoken that name out loud?

For a single moment, her mask slipped, letting a lone, strange emotion pass through her eyes.

“As long as you do the same.”

“You do not command me. I will do as I wish and you will do the same.”

A twitch of her lips. “As you wish, my prince.”

She rose from his cock, making him hiss as the sensitive skin was once again exposed to the cold air, yet before she was able to climb off the chair, he plunged two fingers into her cunt, scooping up as much of his cum as possible, and then quickly pressed them to her lips. They parted easily, and soon her tongue danced around his digits, cleaning them of his seed.

Her eyes never left his.

Chapter Text

He felt ridiculous. She had never listened to his commands - not truly, at least - so why did he expect her to do so now? Why did he listen to her command?

The servant had stared at him in confusion and disbelief when Jon had spoken his order, and it had taken him raising his voice for the man to hastily stumble out of his chambers and fulfil his duty.

Jon stared at the table in the evening, and realised this had been a mistake. He needed to throw everything out of the window, rip off his clothes, and do as he had done every other time before. She could not see him this way-

A knock on the door. 

It was too late, he had failed, she was here, it was-

It was unfair how beautiful she looked. Parts of her hair wound in soft braids around the back of her head, interlaced with blue strings and ribbons the colour of her eyes, some of which were so long they tumbled down over her shoulders and back along with the rest of her golden curls. He had seen the dress she was wearing before - the gown of three different shades of blue she had worn during their tryst in the library - but now, combined with rings and necklaces and a face painted with kohl and blush and a pale red that made him stare at her lips for far too long-

She could almost pass for a princess.

He felt disgusting next to her, dressed in nothing more than his usual black pants and tunica. Even if he had them washed just for this occasion.

Something strange passed across her face the moment she spotted the laid table. Shock, and when her eyes met his, intrigue.

Cerelle curtsied deeply before him, smiling warmly as if she was not his whore but a lady he was trying to court. “Prince Jon. I thank you for this invitation.”

She wished to pretend. Just for one night.

He bowed awkwardly in response. “Lady Cerelle.”

She held out her hand for him.

Did she expect him to kiss it? Aegon did this to the ladies of the court, or even the daughters of visiting merchants, but he had never- 

He had had his lips on almost every part of her body, why would this be any different? Was this a request? A demand? A plea?

Jon laid his fingers underneath hers - so unbelievably soft - and guided her towards the table. Whether she was disappointed by this he did not know.

They talked over dinner. They truly talked. As if he was not the bastard prince and she not the Dragon's Whore. She smiled and laughed and ate what he had had the servants prepare without a second thought.

And he… answered. For some reason, he let himself be lulled into this false sense of security, asked questions and responded to hers as if he wanted to, let out chuckles when she made a joke, rolled his eyes when she complained about a courtier, leaned forward when she told a story from her time at home.

What was happening to him?

He fucked her at the end of the evening, of course. If she had expected to be spared just this once, she did not show, only said as he began leading her towards the bed, “Let us continue to pretend. Just this once.”

Soft and slow, languid and almost unhurried strokes inside her cunt, his face pressed against her neck, her shoulder, sucking at her nipples, his fingers so unbelievably tight around her waist.

They continued this game, day-in, day-out. Sometimes they had proper dinners, other times just a simple glass of that sparkling wine imported from Norvos. Even if he never fucked her as gently ever again.

She adhered to any and all of his commands as before without question, without hesitation. Whenever he was close to screaming at her about it, he drank another flask of ale.

One evening, they stood on his balcony, her hand around his upper arm, staring out into the endlessly dark of the night. Soft music echoed throughout the snowy expanse, almost unnoticeable and yet penetrating his skull all the same. Likely his sister attempting to forget about the attempt on her life by throwing yet another ball.

Cerelle hummed along to it, he realised. So terribly quietly, so terribly hauntingly.

His lips tingled from the cold.

She shifted at his side, then carefully walked around him until she faced him up-front. Her eyes searched for his, her lips parted slightly, she reached for his hands, laid one around her waist, took the other and interlaced it with her slender fingers.

Slowly, she began to move.

It could scarcely be called dancing, this awkward shuffling in the snow. And yet… And yet…

He had never been this close to another person outside of sex, or outside of getting them to have sex with him. To have his hand around a woman's waist, have her fingers trace the skin at the back of his neck, have their chests pressed together; it all felt so terribly strange.

Why did anyone voluntarily subject themselves to this?

Cerelle's gaze had never left his, her eyes as deep as ice never once freeing him from their curse. He once again rued that they were the same height, for now their lips almost touched despite them doing nothing to facilitate it, this oh-so precious skin that every giddy lady dreamed of having kissed, that he had never-

“Tomorrow. Same time.”

Their breaths intermingled. Her mouth parted almost unnoticeably. Snowflakes collected on her lashes.

“As you command, Jon.”

He did not know how long he remained standing this way, hands still outstretched towards the answer that never came.

The following nights, he fucked her as he had done that first night - quickly, harshly, ensuring absolutely no emotion could ever develop between them.

There could not. There was not. He did not care about the woman on her hands and knees before him, giving off not a single sound as he pounded into her heat from behind, as he marked up her back with nails and teeth and open hands.

(They never remained for more than a day.)

She curtsied afterwards, dressed in the same red dress he so despised on her, and left without complaint.

No one ever asked about her. They were likely all too busy to worry about some whore in his bed; too busy with the threatened rebellions and the winter and the death of the Hand and the threat from the north.

He wanted to scream. At himself, at them.

One time he did.

Afterwards he sat in the darkness of his chambers, the fifth bottle of the night already empty and smashed into a million different pieces on the ground, yet nothing managed to stop the sobs ringing out inside the room.

A pathetic excuse for a son.

Must you truly ruin your brother's name day like this? Must you always be the very centre of attention?

I do not know what went wrong with you.

He tightened his fist to let the pain shoot through his arm, banishing his father's words as he cried out.

The balcony door stood open, the ripped curtains flapping in the wind. It would be an easy feat to stand up, walk outside, step onto the banister, and-

A knock.

A key turning in the lock.

Someone entered.

She said not a single word as she beheld the room - the shards, the overturned wardrobe, the torn clothing. The glass crunched beneath her shoes as she slowly neared, fabric brushing over the alcohol-soaked stones beneath, not a single sound passing through her lips.

Empty bottles were removed from beside him. A body joined his, leaning against the bed behind him. He curled up in her lap.

Having someone brush through his hair felt nice, he supposed. No one had ever treated him this gently, so it took him a while to force his body to relax in her hold.

Why did he accept it?

He could have fallen asleep like this.

“You are bleeding.”

“s’nothing.”

“Let me at least bandage it, to keep out any dirt and suchlike.”

He relented. Removed himself from her soft body, sat up, searched blindly for a bottle and emptied it down his throat.

“Do you have a knife I could borrow?”

“They don’t let me keep that kind of stuff here.”

Would he have wanted to see her face? Probably not. She was not showing any of her emotions on it anyways, rather keeping them all hidden safely somewhere inside her, with a pretty bow wrapped around them.

The sound of fabric tearing rang in his ear. He almost vomited at the sudden noise.

Then her cold fingers laid themselves on his, and his heart stopped for a moment. She gently pulled his right hand into her lap, onto the strap of clothing she had ripped off, and carefully wrapped it around the cut on his palm.

She did everything that way. Gently. Carefully.

“Why’d you do that?” He hiccupped. “Why’d you destroy your dress?”

“You do not like it anyways. It is not a loss.”

“But you like it.”

Her fingers paused. He stretched out his own to feel her skin for just a moment longer.

She pulled him upward and guided him- no, dragged and carried him to his bed, pulling him into the middle of the mattress, rightening the pillow beneath his head, pulling at least one blanket up to his chest. When her hands moved away from his body, he hastily caught them again.

“Don’t leave. Don’t, please- Stay.”

A painful, excruciatingly long moment passed.

Then the bed dipped beside him, and she moved underneath the blanket with him. He quickly curled around her body, clinging to her middle and pressing his head against her chest, as if that could have ever been enough to keep her with him forever. She laid one hand on his back, the other returned to his hair.

When he awoke in the morning, the winter sun glowing bright behind his windows and almost blinding him, his first realisation was, She is still here. Calm and soft and breathing quietly beside him, her golden hair returning more warmth to his skin than any fire ever could.

His second realisation was, I did not have a nightmare last night.