Chapter 2: The Lover's Touch
The sourceless wind of Dragonstone never ceased. It found its way now into the Queen’s solar, whispering through the cracks in the stonework, making the flames in the great hearth dip and dance. The room felt different since the burning of the scroll.It breathed heavier. The golden tapestries, their edges darkened by years of smoke, seemed to watch with coiled vigilance. Alicent sat before the fire, a book of Devotional Sevens open but unread in her lap. Her fingers traced the gilded pages but her mind was elsewhere, trapped in the memory of his weight, the smell of his skin, the suffocating stillness that followed.She did not hear him enter. He moved like shadow given purpose. One moment she was alone with the crackling logs, the next his presence filled the space behind her chair, a cold pressure against the back of her neck. She controlled the flinch, turning her head slowly as if she had sensed him all along.
“Aemond.”
He was looking at the book in her lap, his single eye reflecting the firelight.He said nothing. He reached down, his fingers closing over hers, and gently, irrevocably, took the book from her.He set it on the small table beside her, the soft thud final. His movements were deliberate, unnervingly calm. The frantic boy who had rutted against her was gone.In his place was a prince in possession of a newfound, terrible certainty.
“It’s cold in here,” he said, his voice low. His hand came up, not to strike, but to trace the line of her jaw with his knuckles. The leather of his glove was smooth and cool. “You should be warmed.”
Her breath hitched, a tiny, betraying sound she swallowed too late.He heard it.A faint, pleased flicker crossed his sharp features. He unlaced the first tie at the collar of her gown.Then the next. His movements were methodical, a ritual of unwrapping. Alicent sat perfectly still, a statue carved from ice, as he worked. The outer robe of green velvet slid from her shoulders, pooling in the chair behind her.The undergown of cream linen was next. The laces gave way under his precise fingers.She closed her eyes when the cool air touched her skin. She felt the fabric slip, first from her shoulders, then down her arms, baring her to the waist. The fire’s heat kissed her breasts, her stomach.She heard his sharp intake of breath.
“Look at me.” His command was soft, but absolute.She opened her eyes. He was kneeling before her now, between her and the fire, his face a mask of rapt, covetous study. He drank in the sight of her—the fall of auburn hair over pale shoulders, the rise and fall of her chest, the peaks of her nipples hardening in the warm air. He leaned forward, burying his face in the softness of her belly, his lips pressing a hot, open-mouthed kiss against her skin. His hands came up to cradle her ribs, his thumbs stroking the sensitive undersides of her breasts.
“So beautiful,” he murmured, the words muffled against her flesh.“All these years… mine.”
His mouth began to wander. He lavished attention on the curve of her breast, his tongue flicking over the nipple before drawing it deep into the wet heat of his mouth. He suckled, gently at first, then with a growing, rhythmic insistence that sent jolts of unwanted sensation spearing through her core. Alicent’s head fell back against the chair.A small, choked sound escaped her lips. She tangled one hand in his silver hair, not to pull him away, but to anchor herself in this spiraling unreality.
He switched to the other breast, his hands roaming her back, her sides, possessive and sure. He kissed a path down her quivering stomach, his tongue dipping into the hollow of her navel. He hooked his fingers into the waistband of her smallclothes and her remaining skirts, and in one smooth motion, drew them down her legs.The air was cool on her most intimate skin. The firelight danced over her bare thighs.
Aemond sat back on his heels, his eye traveling the length of her nakedness with undisguised hunger. He reached out, spreading her knees apart with a firm, gentle pressure.He looked his fill, his gaze intimate and devastating. “Perfect,” he whispered, more to himself than to her.Then he leaned in again.
His mouth found the inside of her thigh first, a soft, nipping kiss.Then the other. His breath was hot against her. Alicent jerked when his tongue finally found her center, a flat, slow stroke through her folds.She cried out, a sharp, fragmented thing. His hands clamped on her hips, holding her still.He did it again.And again. His tongue was relentless, exploring, circling, finally finding the tight, swollen bud of her clit. He licked it, a precise, swirling motion that made her thighs tremble.
“Aemond… please…” The word was a breathless plea, but for what, she didn’t know.For him to stop? For him to never stop and thus delay the inevitable?
He answered by delving deeper, his tongue pushing into her, fucking her with it. The wet, filthy sound of it echoed in the quiet room, mixed with her ragged gasps and the pop of the fire. He worshipped her with a fanatic’s devotion, his nose pressed against her, his eye screwed shut in concentration. The coil of tension in her belly, a traitorous, physical betrayal, wound tighter and tighter. She bucked against his face, her hips lifting off the chair. A high, thin wail was torn from her throat as the release crashed through her, wave after wave of shameful, intense pleasure that left her shuddering and slick against his mouth.
He gentled his tongue, lapping at her softly as she came down, before pulling back.His lips and chin gleamed wet in the firelight. He rose to his feet, looking down at her with an expression of awestruck triumph. He fumbled with the laces of his own breeches, his earlier calm shattered by urgent need. His cock sprang free, hard and flushed, the head already beaded with precum.
He lifted her from the chair as if she weighed nothing, carrying her the few steps to the thick furs spread before the hearth. He laid her down, the fur tickling her skin. He followed her down, settling his body between her spread legs.The tip of his cock nudged against her, slipping easily in her wetness. He didn’t thrust. He leaned on his elbows, cradling her face, and looked into her eyes.“Tell me you’re mine,” he breathed, his voice ragged.
She saw the madness and the love, twisted together so tightly they were one and the same. She saw the lonely, scarred boy who had finally claimed his prize. To deny him now would be to unleash the dragon.So she lifted her hands, framing his beloved, terrible face. “I am yours,” she whispered, the lie tasting of honey and ashes.
He entered her then, a slow, deep, splitting invasion that drew a gasp from them both. He filled her completely, a claiming more total than any kiss.He began to move, a rolling, deep rhythm that was startling in its tenderness. Each withdrawal was aching, each thrust a deliberate, profound reunion. He kissed her tears—when had she started crying?—from her cheeks.He whispered into her skin, nonsense, promises, prayers.
“I love you,” he moaned into the hollow of her throat, his hips snapping forward with more force. “Gods, I love you.I love you. I love you.” The words were a chant, a spell, a weapon.
And against every oath, every shred of decency left in her fractured soul, Alicent Hightower felt her body respond. Her legs wrapped around his waist, pulling him deeper.Her hips rose to meet his thrusts, matching his pace. A second, more devastating peak built within her, born of physical sensation and profound, existential ruin. She clung to him as it broke, her nails digging into the muscles of his back, a silent scream locked in her throat.
He followed her over, his own release a harsh, shuddering series of grunts against her shoulder.He collapsed onto her, spent, his sweat cooling on her skin. For a long time, there was only the sound of their breathing and the fire.
When he finally rolled off her, he pulled her against his side, tucking her head under his chin. He stroked her hair, his touch languid, satiated. “You see?” he murmured, his voice thick with sleep and satisfaction.“This is where you belong.Where you’ve always belonged.With me. Nothing else matters.”
Alicent stared into the dying embers. She could feel his seed leaking from between her thighs.The lie was a living thing inside her now, curled tight around her heart. She nodded against his chest, a small, barren motion.“Yes,” she breathed to the darkness.
When his breathing evened into sleep, she slipped from his grasp. She washed herself with cold water from the basin, scrubbing until her skin was raw. She dressed in silence, each layer a shield. She looked at him, asleep on the furs, bathed in firelight—her son, her prince, her monster.Her only path to power.She left the solar. The stone corridors were colder than ever.She walked until she found a secluded balcony overlooking the treacherous sea. The salt wind whipped her hair and dried the last of the tears on her face. She leaned on the parapet, her knuckles white.A presence solidified in the doorway behind her. She didn’t need to turn.“You saw,” she stated, her voice flat and empty.
Ser Harren Strong stepped onto the balcony.He did not look at her.He gazed out at the same black water. “I guard his door, Your Grace. I see what comes and goes.”
“And what did you see tonight?”
“I saw a prince visiting his mother.” His voice was carefully neutral, a mountain refusing to give an opinion on the weather.Alicent turned to him then. The fire had returned to her eyes, not warmth, but a green, burning purpose. “You saw a leash, Ser Harren.You saw the only chain that can hold him. The village on the Blue Fork still stands, does it not?”
Harren was silent for a long moment. “It does.”
“Because of me.” She took a step toward him, her small form suddenly imposing. “You spoke of stability.Of the realm.This… arrangement… is how we achieve it. He will listen to me now.Through me, he can be guided. But I cannot do it alone.” She searched his solemn, scarred face.“You are a man of duty. Your duty is to the Crown, to the continuation of peace. However it must be maintained.”
Harren’s jaw worked.The conflict in him was a physical tension in the air.He had sworn vows. He had seen the boy grow into this.He had just seen the depth of the abyss.
“What would you have me do?” The question was a surrender.“Support him publicly. Be his strong right arm. But when his fire grows too hot, when his cruelty threatens to burn more than just a scroll… you come to me.Together, we cool the flame. We keep the dragon on its chain.” She placed a hand, light as a bird, on his vambrace. “For the realm, Ser Harren.”
He looked at her hand, then out to sea, where the first grey hints of dawn were bleeding into the black.He gave a single, slow nod.
“For the realm,” he echoed, the words heavy as a tombstone.
Alicent withdrew her hand.She had her general. The battle for her son’s soul, and for the future of the Seven Kingdoms, was joined. She turned and walked back into the dark keep, her spine straight, her heart a frozen cinder in her chest, already planning the next move in a war no one else knew was being fought.