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In the Great Hall she watches Daemon, waiting for him to turn and look at her.
Her eyes run over his changed form - shorter hair, battle-hardened muscles, a sombre mien despite his triumph – surely he is not so changed as he appears? Surely he is not entirely muzzled and repentant?
The court is giddy with relief when he has handed the crown to the King and been embraced, and forgiven, welcomed back to the family. But still she hears the murmur around her in the hall amongst those with wiser heads: what does he want? they worry. For what reason has the rogue prince returned?
For what reason indeed, she thinks herself, as he walks out with the king, her father, with nary a look towards her, when not an hour ago, his dragon Caraxes had clipped her boat. Her boat with its Targaryen sigil, and with her on the deck with her silver hair and blood-red gown.
Perhaps she might have waited for him to make the next move in their cat and mouse game, if she was not so tired of waiting. If she did not have something pressing to tell him.
And so she goes straight to where she knows she will find him, his chambers, and is welcomed inside by a maid who bobs a curtsey and then hurries off.
He slits his eyes at Rhaenyra, smiles his pleased little smile. 'Hello, princess,' he says.
'Hello, uncle,' she replies.
His squire is stripping him of the armour atop his flying leathers. The room smells of leather and metal, of the tang of blood, and of wine from the cup in his hand and the jug nearby on the table. The room smells of dragon, and of her uncle.
She did not know how much she missed him until he was before her in the flesh. Tall and proud and yet feigning to be only a man like other men, the power in his limbs relaxed. Is it awful of her to wish to see that power unleashed? She has missed seeing him at tourneys, missed seeing how he toys with those at court too.
'Well, what do you want?' she asks as she draws closer, hands clasped behind her back.
'What do I want?' he replies casually. 'Only the comforts of home.'
Her hand hovers curiously over his discarded sword before pouring her own cup of wine. 'You've arrived just in time for the announcement,' she says, looking at him over the rim of the cup.
He likes his wine strong, it burns in her throat, her belly.
'What announcement?' he answers.
'The announcement of my betrothal.'
She watches his body still. The squire clears his throat nervously, he can tell the man beneath his hands has turned dangerous.
But Daemon is always dangerous, she thinks, even when he is slouched on a couch, head lolling on a pillow, or drunk in his cups and listing to one side at a feast, he has the manner of some deadly beast toying with the world.
'Betrothal,' Daemon repeats wryly. 'Which fair and noble youth has won your eye then?'
'Laenor Velaryon.'
A laugh escapes Daemon's throat. 'This is a good joke.'
'It's not a joke,' she says, hiding her small thrill at throwing him off guard.
She watches as his jaw flexes, as he looks down with a smile. 'Leave us, squire,' he says, and the poor youth bows and hurries from the room.
'Laenor is a poor choice,' Daemon says, tugging his jerkin from his shoulders.
'Not according to the small council.'
'And they are the wisest of men.'
'He fought with you at the Stepstones, he is said to be a noble man.'
'A noble man...' Daemon repeats with a drawl. He rolls the sleeves of his tunic up and leans back on the table, tilts his head arrogantly as he looks at her. 'I know Laenor well. I fought beside him, I shared a camp with him, I lived with him in the muck and the dirt of those wretched islands.'
'So you know him to be noble,' she says.
'I know him to be a man overly fond of cock.'
A shocked noise escapes her mouth, she tries to regain her composure. 'What—what men do in camps of war is not something a maiden needs to hear—'
'My cock, to be exact.'
'Daemon!'
'Though to be fair to him he was not indiscriminatory.' He stands up and stalks towards her slowly, lazily, and yet she feels pinned.
There is far too much talk of cocks, she thinks, with a hysterical shudder, eyes slipping down to look at his leather breeches and then quickly away.
But he noticed, of course he did, and he smirks. 'It is true that men may pleasure men in a war camp out of boredom, out of battle fever and lack of any other good options. I have been known to lend a hand,' he slides a hand down his middle, 'to lend my—'
'Daemon, please—' she says, caught between horror and shame and a strange excitement.
He motions his hand towards her. 'If you are to be betrothed to such a man you must hear the details, no maidenly blushes now.'
'But I am a maiden.'
'Yes, you are,' he says, with no small manner of satisfaction, she thinks. 'And thus, I must educate you. It is my duty as your uncle, is it not?'
'Educate me?' Her mind spins lurid pictures, her thoughts rush away from her.
'Your cheeks have flushed, princess,' he says, touching her face with the back of his knuckles. 'Whyever for?'
Her eyelids flutter. It has been years since he has touched her, years since he has been so close. 'Tis the topic of the conversation,' she stutters, trying to regain the upper hand in a conversation that has ran away from her, 'it is unseemly.'
Unseemly, he mouths mockingly. 'Was it unseemly for a maiden to hide and gaze upon her uncle engaging in relations with a whore? Hmm?'
'I did no such thing—'
'I know you were there, princess. I heard the lot of you giggling, and I smelled your perfume. You forget that I was the one to gift you this perfume from across the narrow sea.' He touches a finger to her neck, where she dabbed his gift this morning.
It had been several years ago now, the evening that he speaks of, before the war in the Stepstones. He had still been at court, the object of her fascination—the object of many a maiden's fascination. There had been a maidservant, the daughter of an old favourite of the king's, who confessed to Rhaenyra that there was a hidden passageway that led to a grate behind which one could peer into Daemon's solar. She thought only to catch him speaking with his allies or in his cups with friends, entertaining a woman even. But on the night she and her ladies-in-waiting chose, he was not simply entertaining a woman, he was fucking one, a singer who had come to court, of flame-hair and lithe beauty.
He was fucking her right across his desk, his hips driving into her with a power that made Rhaenyra tremble where she knelt watching. The singer's noises, Daemon's grunts, his naked form, the wolfish look on his face— she has been haunted day and night since.
'Perhaps I was looking for an education,' she says, eyes meeting his.
'You are such a curious girl, aren't you, a girl eager to learn.' He is so close that the fabric of his tunic touches her bare arms.
'My septa always told me I was a terrible pupil. The maesters despaired of my arithmetic.'
'Arithmetic is for money lenders and merchants. Although, a basic knowledge of numbers is useful. For example, dearest niece, one plus one equals...?'
'Two.'
'Yes. And a husband and a wife equals...?' He places a hand on the wall next to her.
'A child. Though you would not know it from your lack of issue.'
'You are quite an impertinent girl, do you know that?' His smile is dangerous.
'I'm a woman grown.'
'That you are.' His face dips closer. She can smell the wine on his breath. 'So tell me, this simple arithmetic of yours, a husband and wife and a child. How do you imagine the outcome is affected if the husband never lays with the wife? If the husband cannot gaze upon a naked woman without fleeing? If he refuses to do his husbandly duties?'
'Could he not simply close his eyes and pretend?'
Daemon closes his own eyes as if this pains him, he sways forward so that she can feel his body against hers. 'Rhaenyra, princess. Is that what you wish from a husband, truly? Do you think a man may simply close his eyes and pretend the body beneath him is who he desires, do you think it works that way?'
'Doesn't it work that way for you?' She clutches at his tunic, as if needing to hold herself up.
'What do you mean?'
'In your brothels and pleasure houses. Don't you couple with whores and imagine them someone else?'
Daemon, it is rumoured, prefers the whores with silver hair, dyed or bewigged or of a pale blonde that might seem silver in a darkened room.
'It seems to me that you spend a lot of time thinking of me abed, of me...coupling,' he says hotly, pressing forward. Now there is nothing between them, now her form is pressed against his entirely.
She shakes her head.
'No? You watched that night and never thought on it again, never pictured me there on a desk, or a bed, on your bed—'
'Daemon,' she gasps but it is like a moan.
His hands grip her hips now, his eyes dark. 'End this farce, Rhaenyra. Do not marry him.'
'Whom else should I wed? Whom else would meet your approval and the approval of the small council?'
'Hang the small council, their wishes are immaterial.'
Does he wish for her to say it out loud, to pick him? 'Who might you suggest I wed instead? Who would meet your approval? Who would be a good lover?'
'Oh, you test my patience, princess,' he says, squeezing his grip, making her shudder. 'You come to me, lately arrived from war, crowned and triumphant, with my blood hot from a long dragonflight. You come to me and talk of your lovers...'
'I have not had any lovers.'
'I know this,' he says and runs his nose under her jaw. His lips brush her neck slowly, dangerously. 'Because if you had, if you knew...you would not have entertained this ridiculous notion.'
'I bow to your superior knowledge on the matter, uncle,' she says.
'You wish to be taught,' he declares, voice so deep it rumbles, 'you wish to know.'
'Yes.'
'I shan't make you beg, don't worry, not this time,' he says and swallows her noises with a kiss— her first kiss that she has saved for him. Does he know that?
Her arms wind around his neck as he devours her, as he sucks and bites and laves his tongue over hers.
'Daemon,' she gasps as he shifts her chin up with his thumb and mouths her neck, as his hands grope her sides.
'You want to know, princess, what you have been missing, what you shall miss if you wed that fool?'
'Yes,' she says and he hoists up her heavy skirts, his muscles bunching under her fingers at the weight.
'You highborn ladies and your ridiculous gowns, layering yourself in fabric and what for—'
'Do you not enjoy a challenge, uncle?'
He laughs against her mouth. 'Oh, I enjoy a challenge. I enjoy the hunt, the chase. But then you know that.'
And now his hand is sliding up her undersilk, skimming across her bare thigh and cupping her mound through her smallclothes.
'I have seen nothing to suggest so these last few years,' she retorts, barely keeping hold of her wits.
He shifts his palm upwards, she whines at the heat of him.
'You would rather I had lazed about here at court than been at war?' he says darkly.
'Yes.'
He shifts her smallclothes aside, slides his fingers through her slick.
'You would rather I had lazed about here grown fat and indolent and useless,' he grunts at her jaw. 'Waiting on your every breath, stalking your footsteps, watching you.'
'Yes,' she says with a sob as his thumb circles her nub, as his finger slides inside of her.
He works her expertly, he has her in his hand, while his mouth plucks kisses from her moaning lips.
'You like to be watched, don't you?' he murmurs as sweat slicks down her back, as her legs threaten to collapse with trembling. 'What would you do if there was a peeping hole here in my chambers too? If we were being watched now? If the court knew what a slattern you were for me, how easy you were for me?'
'I'm not easy—' she gasps.
'No, you are not, my love,' he says, half exasperated laugh, half grunt as he presses his hardness against her thigh. 'You are a thorn in my side. You are wild as a dragon.'
'I'm yours,' she complains, with the last of her wits, wriggling and bucking as he curls his fingers, as he presses in.
'Yes, you are,' he declares and she peaks. He holds up her up, one arm a tight band around her waist, the other working her still, drawing out her pleasure as her fingernails dig into his shoulders. 'Yes, you are,' he says.
'Then claim me,' she murmurs between quiet moans, shivering in his arms. 'Then claim me,' she begs.
He cups her mound again, bites lazily at her bottom lip. 'I thought I just did.'
'You complained about my absence, darling niece,' he says later, once he has settled her on the couch and she has gulped down a cup of wine. He sits at her feet, his hands playing with her slippered feet like he is a housecat, and not a dragon.
'I missed you,' she says sullenly and kicks at him gently.
He grasps her ankle in one large hand, squeezes. She feels an answering squeeze inside her.
He smirks like he knows it. 'I have created a monster,' he murmurs.
'You have awakened the dragon,' she replies, half jest, and he laughs, head tipped back with mirth. He is delighted by her.
'You complained about my absence,' he begins again, rising up to his knees and then his feet, arms coming to rest either side of her so she is boxed in, 'but I come back to court with a crown.'
'An ugly one.'
He tsk's his tongue. 'Impertinent.'
'Honest,' she retorts.
'Hardly honest, you sly little creature. You came in here talking of a betrothal that cannot be so close to declaration, else I would have heard tell of it myself. I have my spies here at court, you know.'
'Then you know that the small council have pressed for it, that my father considers it,' she says stubbornly.
'I came back as soon as I could, my love, as soon as you needed me.'
She shakes her head. She needed him for the years when he wasn't with her too.
'You are a greedy girl. And, furthermore, you were just a girl then. I needed to wait for you to come of age and I needed the King to owe a debt to me.'
'A crown for a crown,' she says.
He presses his forehead against hers, holds her gaze. 'Yes.'
'But you will not sit on the Iron Throne, you will sit beside me.'
'As you wish it,' he says.
She grasps his hair in her fist. 'As I demand it.'
His eyes flutter. 'Yes.'
'My husband you shall be, King consort you shall be.'
'If you would have me, princess.'
'I would,' she says and he kisses her to seal the oath. 'But you shall have to make up for your absence, you shall have to make it up to me.'
'And you still require further education,' he agrees, kneeling at her feet again, pushing up her skirts and following his hands with his head.
Oh, gods, she thinks desperately as he widens her hips, as his mouth meets her cunt, perhaps it is she who has awakened something dangerous, perhaps it is her who will not survive this conflaguration.
Daemon carries her to the bed, shifts the blankets and the quilts away, tears at her dress. He will see her bare, now, he thinks, he will have her naked before him, perfect and pale and his alone, to take, to have.
The gods made her to torment him, he thinks, as he works her with his mouth, they made her to vex him, to be his triumph and surely his ruin. And what a sweet ruin. What a sweet torment.
Does she think it has been easy to be parted from her, and from the luxuries of court, besides? Does she believe he tarried at war for fun? Oh, she is a spoiled thing, his betrothed, a demanding girl. A Queen with a queen's lusts.
Perhaps it is he who has been made for her, for none alive but he, he thinks, as he knees his way up the bed, as he rids himself of tunic and breeches and lets her grasping, hot hands reach for him, could match her hunger, her fire.