Chapter 12: The Taste of Submission
The quiet of the morning was a lie.
It followed them through the day, a fragile bubble that popped with the arrival of a raven from King’s Landing. Gwayne read the scroll in the yard, his face turning to stone. He didn’t share the contents, but the set of his shoulders as he walked back inside was answer enough. The world, with its demands and its victors’ politics, had found them again.
By twilight, the bubble was a distant memory. Naerys sought refuge in the solar, a room she usually avoided. The tapestries were too loud, the woven hawks too sharp-eyed. She held a book of Valyrian verse, but the symbols swam. Her mind was in the woods, in the damp dark, in the raw confession whispered against pines.
The door opened.
Gwayne stood there, silhouetted by the torchlight in the corridor. He’d shed his lordly tunic. He wore only a linen shirt, unlaced at the throat, and dark breeches. He held a single candle, its flame painting his face in severe, dancing relief. He looked at her, then at the book in her lap. His eyes were dark, not with anger, but with a focused intensity that made the air in the room feel thin.
He stepped inside and closed the door.
The sound of the iron bolt sliding home was deafening in the quiet. A definitive, heavy thunk. He set the candle on the broad oak table. The tapestries seemed to lean in.
“Couldn’t read,” Naerys said, her voice sounding small.
“No,” he agreed. His voice was quiet, rough. He walked toward her, not to the empty chair opposite, but directly to where she sat by the cold hearth. The fur rug was thick and deep, a pelt from some enormous beast he’d killed years ago. He stopped before her, looking down. “Neither could I.”
He reached out, not for her hand, but for the book. He took it from her limp fingers and tossed it aside onto a chair. It landed with a soft thump. Then his hand was under her chin, tilting her face up to the candlelight. His thumb brushed her lower lip. “All day,” he said, almost to himself. “All fucking day, listening to my father’s voice in my head, reading words about taxes and loyalties. All I could think about was this mouth.”
Her breath hitched. The command in his touch was new, a current beneath the gentleness they’d forged. It wasn’t cruel. It was desperate. It was a man clawing back a piece of himself from the realm of parchment and duty.
“Gwayne…”
“I want your mouth, Naerys.” It wasn’t a request. It was a stark, hungry statement. A need named and given shape.
He let go of her chin and took her by the shoulders, urging her forward, off the chair and onto her knees on the deep fur rug. The prickling softness of the pelt pressed through her thin gown. He stood over her, looking down, his hazel eyes swallowed by black pupil. His fingers went to the laces of his breeches.
He untied them, not with haste, but with a deliberate, tense slowness. He pushed the fabric down over his hips just enough to free himself. His cock sprang out, already fully hard, thick and flushed in the low light. A drop of moisture gleamed at the tip. He was beautiful like this, a stark, proud line of flesh, utterly vulnerable and utterly demanding.
He cradled himself in one hand, guiding the broad head to her lips. He tapped it against them, once, twice, a damp, insistent rhythm. “Open,” he murmured.She did. She parted her lips, and he slid the head inside. The taste of him, salt and skin and something uniquely male, flooded her senses. She closed her lips around him, her tongue flattening against the sensitive underside.
A sharp, shattered gasp left him. His other hand came up to cradle the back of her head, his fingers tangling in the silver-gold cascade of her hair. Not pulling. Just holding. Anchoring.
“Yes,” he breathed. “Just like that. Now take more.”
She obeyed, sinking down, letting him fill her mouth. He was big, stretching her lips wide, pressing down on her tongue. She relaxed her throat, the way she’d learned in the bath, and he let out a choked groan as the head nudged into that tighter, hotter passage.
“Fuck. You learn so fast.” His voice was a ragged thing. He began to move, a shallow, tentative rocking of his hips. “That’s it. Let me in. All the way.”
His control was a fraying thread. With each slow thrust, it unraveled. His breath came in harsh pants. The hand in her hair tightened, not painfully, but with a possessiveness that sent a bolt of pure heat straight to her core. He started to fuck her mouth in earnest, his hips driving forward, his cock plunging deeper.
The room filled with the wet, obscene sounds of it. His groans. The slick noise of her taking him. The rustle of the fur. He was losing himself, his movements growing frantic, less polished. He was just a man, chasing his pleasure in the only way he knew how to claim it with her.
“So good,” he gritted out, his abdomen clenching. “Your pretty fucking mouth is mine. Swallowing my cock like you were made for it. Gods, Naerys…”
He was close. She could feel it in the iron tension of his thighs, in the throbbing pulse of him against her tongue. His thrusts became erratic, brutal, beautiful in their abandon. He was using her, and she was letting him, and in this, there was a shocking, profound equality.
With a guttural snarl, he pulled back, just until the head rested back on her tongue. “Look at me.”
She opened her eyes, tears gathered at the corners from the effort, and looked up the length of his body. His face was a mask of agonized ecstasy.
He came.
Hot, bitter spurts flooded her mouth, painting her tongue, hitting the back of her throat. He shuddered violently, his whole body bowing. He kept his eyes locked on hers as he spent himself, jet after jet, until he was empty. A final, weaker pulse smeared across her lip.
He held there for a long moment, panting, before he pushed back in, not deep, just enough to sheath himself in the wet, spent warmth of her mouth. A low, satisfied hum vibrated from him. He gently withdrew, sliding out with a soft, wet pop.
“Swallow,” he commanded, his voice shot.
She did. She swallowed every drop, the taste of him a permanent mark now, a secret beneath her skin.
“Good girl,” he breathed, the praise a warm balm. He collapsed to his knees on the rug before her, his breeches still around his thighs. He didn’t let her speak. He cupped her face and kissed her, deep and searching, his tongue sweeping into her mouth to taste himself on her. It was filthy. It was intimate beyond measure.
When he broke the kiss, he rested his forehead against hers, their breath mingling. In the candlelight, she saw not the lord, not the knight, but the man from the woods, laid bare.
“They want us to go to King’s Landing,” he said quietly, the words a cold splash of reality. “In a fortnight. My father. The Hand. To stand before Aegon and swear fealty anew. To show the reconciled realm its happy, obedient lordling and his Targaryen bride.” He pulled back, his eyes searching hers. “They want to see you. They want to see him. They want to put our son on display.”
The fear was instant, a cold serpent coiling in her gut. King’s Landing. The Red Keep. The ghosts of her mother, her father. The court that had rejoiced in their downfall. Aegon the Usurper, sitting the Iron Throne.
Gwayne saw it. He saw the terror she couldn’t hide. His expression hardened, not at her, but at the world. He took her hand, pressing her palm over his heart, which still beat a fierce, rapid rhythm.
“Listen to me,” he said, his voice low and solid as the tower stone around them. “You are not a prisoner going to her gaolers. You are my lady wife. The mother of my heir. My dragon.” He said the last word with a fierce, defiant pride. “We faced the woods. We can face the court.”
He pulled his breeches up, lacing them with quick, efficient tugs. He stood, then lifted her to her feet with him. He kept her close, an arm around her waist, holding her to his side as he blew out the single candle. The room was plunged into deep twilight, the silver hawk in the tapestry vanishing into shadow.
“Come to bed,” he said, no request in it now, only a promise of shared warmth against the coming cold. “We have a fortnight to prepare.”
The fortnight dissolved into a blur of tailored gowns, polished armor, and the silent, growing dread of the journey north. Naerys held Baelon tighter each morning, memorizing the scent of his head. Gwayne spent longer hours in the yard, the clash of steel against the pell ringing through the afternoons with a brutal, repetitive fury. The specter of the Red Keep loomed in every quiet moment between them, a cold stone weight neither could lift.
Two nights before they were to ride for King’s Landing, the dread congealed into a quiet, shared desperation. A bath had been drawn, steam curling in the chill air of their chamber. A half-empty flagon of sweet Arbor gold sat on the floor between the tub and the hearth. Naerys, submerged to her shoulders, watched the water ripple with her own unsteady movements. The wine hummed warmly in her veins, blurring the sharp edges of her fear into something softer, more malleable. Gwayne sat opposite her, his head tipped back against the copper rim, his eyes closed. Tension corded the muscles of his neck.
She pushed through the water, the displacement sloshing gently. He opened his eyes as she settled herself astride his lap, the hot water rising around them. Her skin was flushed pink from the heat, her silver-gold hair clinging in wet ropes to her shoulders and breasts. She saw the surprise in his hazel eyes, then the slow, grateful darkening of his pupils. Her hand slid beneath the surface, finding him. He was soft at first, but grew steadily firmer in her circling grasp as she watched his face.
“Tell me,” she said, her voice low and a little slurred from the wine. Her hips shifted, the wet nest of her curls brushing against his thickening length.
“Tell you what?” he murmured, his hands coming to rest on the slope of her waist.
She leaned forward, her breasts pressing against his chest, her lips at his ear. The steam and the alcohol made her brave. “In the woods… you said it was always men.” She kissed the hollow beneath his jaw. “Tell me how.” She guided him to her entrance, notching the broad tip against her. “Tell me how you would fuck a man.”
Gwayne went utterly still. The only sound was the drip of water from the tap and the crackle of the fire. She felt the shock ripple through him, a stiffening of every muscle. Then, a heavy, shuddering exhale warmed her shoulder. The wine had loosened the lock on a deeply buried box. His hands tightened on her hips.
“Naerys…”
“Tell me,” she insisted, and sank down onto him, taking him deep in one slow, wet glide. They both gasped. The fit was perfect, familiar and searing. She began to move, a lazy, rocking rhythm aided by the buoyancy of the water.
His head fell back with a thunk against the copper. His eyes were squeezed shut. “It’s… different,” he ground out, his hips beginning to meet her rise and fall.
“How?” She breathed, riding him with more intent now, water slapping against the tub sides.
His hands slid down to grip the full curves of her ass, his fingers digging into the soft flesh. He helped her, setting a deeper, more demanding pace. “Less… ceremony. Cruder. Faster.” The words were torn from him, rough and honest. “Less about… taking. More about… sharing the hunger.”
“Show me,” she panted, her own hunger spiking, heated by his confession and the friction of him inside her. “Tell me what you’d do.”
He opened his eyes. They were black with want, with a vulnerability that was almost brutal. “I’d push him against a wall,” he growled, his voice guttural. His thrusts grew harder, driving up into her. “Get my hands on his hips. Feel the muscle there, the difference.” He groaned, his grip on her relentless. “I’d fuck him like I wanted to break us both apart. Just pure need. No pretty words. Just sweat and skin and his cock in my hand.”
The imagery, raw and unfiltered, ignited her. She moaned, her rhythm fragmenting into something frantic. The water churned around them. He was fucking up into her in earnest now, using his hold on her ass to control their collision. The copper tub groaned in protest.
“I’m close,” she whimpered, her nails scraping his shoulders.
“I know,” he rasped, his gaze locked on her face, watching every flicker of pleasure. “Come on. Come for me. Let me see it.”
His command, the filthy picture he’d painted with his words, the exquisite fullness of him—it all crested at once. Her climax ripped through her with a violence that stole her breath. She cried out, a sharp, broken sound, her body clamping around him in relentless, shuddering waves. She shook, trembling, her forehead dropping to his shoulder.
The sensation of her pulsing around him undid him completely. With a ragged shout, he found his own release, his hips slamming up to bury himself to the root as he came. Heat flooded her, spurting deep inside in thick, endless pulses as he held her crushed against him.
For long minutes, there was only the sound of their ragged breathing and the settling water. She lay boneless against him, spent. He slowly loosened his vice-like grip on her backside, his hands smoothing over the skin he’d marked.
“Gods,” he finally whispered, his voice hoarse with wonder and leftover shock. “I didn’t know my wife could be so… lascivious.”
A giggle bubbled out of her, faint and breathless. She turned her head and kissed the damp, stubbled plane of his cheek. “Only for you,” she murmured against his skin, the words softened by wine and fulfillment. “My love.”
He let out a long, slow breath. Then he shifted, lying back in the water, and pulled her with him, settling her against his chest. Her ear rested over his heart, which still hammered a wild, slowing rhythm. His arms came around her, holding her close in the cooling water, as the firelight danced on the steam above them.
His arms came around her, holding her close in the cooling water, as the firelight danced on the steam above them. That shared, wine-softened truth hung between them in the days that followed, a secret shield and a hidden wound. It made the packing of trunks, the selection of her most subdued grey silvers, the swaddling of Baelon in green-and-white linen, feel like preparing for a siege.
The journey south was a blur of jolting carriage wheels, the sour smell of wet wool from their escort, and Baelon’s fussing at the strange rhythms of the road. Gwayne rode ahead, a straight-backed silhouette often obscured by autumn rain. He’d kiss her forehead each morning, his lips cool and quick, his eyes saying everything his words couldn’t. “Steady,” he’d murmur, just for her. She’d nod, clutching their son, feeling the ghost of his confession in the woods like a brand over her heart.
King’s Landing announced itself long before they saw the walls. The air thickened, first with the wet loam of the kingswood, then with the encroaching stench of humanity—smoke, sewage, rotting fish, and the cloying sweetness of baking bread from a hundred ovens. It was a smell of endings. Naerys closed her eyes, breathing through her mouth. Baelon, sensing her tension, began a thin, reedy cry she soothed with a trembling finger.
The Red Keep loomed, a ragged crown of blood-red stone against a grimy sky. Its sheer scale was a blow. It didn’t just occupy space; it devoured the light around it. Guards in Targaryen red and black, not Hightower white, escorted them through gates that groaned like dying beasts. The courtyards teemed with unfamiliar faces, eyes like pebbles skimming over her, sticking to the silver of her hair. A different kind of cage, she thought. One with a thousand bars.
They were given chambers that were too large, too cold, and too empty. The walls held no tapestries of hawks, only faint, ghostly rectangles where other hangings had been removed. “They air the ghosts out here,” Naerys whispered that night, lying rigid beside Gwayne in a foreign bed. He said nothing, just pulled her back against his chest, his chin resting on her head, his heartbeat a slow drum against her spine.
The summons came at noon the next day.
A pinch-faced steward with a red velvet jerkin delivered it. “His Grace King Aegon the Second will receive you in the throne room. Immediately.” The man’s eyes, pale and dismissive, flicked to the crib where a nursemaid held Baelon. “The infant, as well.”
Gwayne’s hand found the small of her back. His touch was a point of warmth, a signal. Steady. He dressed with deliberate care in his finest Hightower green, the silver hawk glittering. He helped fasten the pearls at the nape of her neck, his fingers sure. She wore grey, the color of mist and lost causes, her hair bound in a severe, gleaming knot. No crown. No jewels but the pearls. A dragon in plain wrapping.
“Ready?” he asked, his voice low.
She took a final look at Baelon, who slept, blissfully unaware, in a bundle of linen. She nodded, not trusting her voice.
The walk to the throne room was a march through a gauntlet of whispers. The court was a sea of silk and velvet, a rustling, perfume-drenched animal with a hundred pairs of hungry eyes. They parted with a murmur, their gazes scraping over her. She saw the curiosity, the outright hostility, the cold assessment. A living trophy. The last daughter of Rhaenyra, led to heel.
Then she saw the throne.
It wasn’t a seat. It was a monstrous, asymmetrical explosion of blackened swords, a thousand blades melted and twisted by dragonfire into a jagged, towering mockery of power. It glittered with a menacing, sharp light. And lounging in its treacherous heart, one leg slung carelessly over a blade, was Aegon II.
Time had not been kind. The boy she vaguely remembered was gone, replaced by a man whose flesh seemed both puffy and sagging. His face was pale, his blonde hair thin. But his eyes, a washed-out lilac, were bright and watchful as a hawk’s. He watched them approach, a small, loose smile playing on his lips. The silence in the hall became a physical pressure, thick enough to choke on.
They stopped at the prescribed distance. Gwayne bowed deeply. Naerys swept into the lowest curtsy her dignity would allow, her eyes fixed on the cracked stone floor between Aegon’s boots. She felt the weight of the throne, of the court, of history itself, pressing down on the back of her neck.
“Niece” Aegon’s voice rang out, too loud, artificially cheerful. It scratched against the silence. “And my loyal Lord Hightower. Rise, rise. Let me look at this famous union.”
They straightened. Naerys kept her chin level, her gaze settling on a point just above his shoulder. Do not look at the blades. Do not think of Syrax’s fall.
Aegon’s washed-out eyes crawled over her, inch by inch. “By the gods, Naerys. You have your mother’s hair. A lighter shade, though. Less… fiery.” He chuckled, a dry, rattling sound. “A mercy, that. We’ve had enough fire, haven’t we?”
A titter rippled through the court behind them. Naerys’s stomach turned to ice. She felt Gwayne’s arm, rigid at his side. She could almost hear his teeth grinding.
The King leaned forward, his elbow on a protruding sword hilt. “And this must be the child. The realm’s little peace-banner.” He gestured a lazy, careless hand. “Bring him forth.”
The nursemaid, trembling, stepped forward and carefully placed the bundled Baelon into Naerys’s waiting arms. The weight of him was an anchor. She adjusted the linen, revealing his sleeping face, his own shock of pale red hair.
Aegon peered down. “Hmm. Has the look. Let’s hope he inherits his father’s temperament, eh? The Hightower sense.” He grinned, showing teeth. “We know all about the Targaryen temperament. Volatile. Like those dragons of yours.” He waved his hand again, as if shooing a fly. “All gone now, of course. A pity. Spectacular beasts. Messy, though. The way they left your mother… well. Messy.”
The air left the room. The casual cruelty of it, so offhand, so perfectly aimed, was a punch to her diaphragm. She saw, in a flash of blinding red, Caraxes falling, Daemon’s last stand. She saw Syrax, torn apart by mobs. She heard a phantom roar in her ears. Her arms tightened around Baelon, her knuckles white.
She felt Gwayne shift, an almost imperceptible movement. His hand brushed the back of hers, a fleeting point of contact. Steady.
She forced her lungs to fill. She lifted her gaze, meeting the King’s watery lilac eyes directly for the first time. Her voice, when it came, was clear, cold, and carried perfectly in the hushed hall. “The past is indeed a foreign country, Your Grace.” She let the slightest, most polite smile touch her lips. It felt like carving stone. “We are here to look to the future. Our son is its promise.”
A beat of stunned silence followed. Aegon’s smug smile faltered, just for a second, replaced by a flicker of surprise. He hadn’t expected a reply. He’d expected tears, or flinching silence. Not this cool, polished deflection.
Gwayne chose that moment to speak, his tone respectful, unwavering, filling the space she had created. “Our loyalty is to the crown and the peace, Your Grace. House Hightower serves. As it always has.”
Aegon leaned back, his eyes darting between them. He looked, for a moment, like a man who had tried to kick a wall and stubbed his toe. The expected moment of humiliation had slipped through his fingers, leaving only this united, composed front. He covered it with a forced, louder laugh. “Well said! Peace. Loyalty. Dull words, but necessary ones.” He waved them away, the gesture suddenly impatient. “You are welcomed. Enjoy the court’s festivities.”
They bowed and curtsied again, the movement synchronized. They turned as one, Naerys cradling Baelon, Gwayne’s hand now a firm, guiding pressure at her back. They walked back through the parted sea of courtiers, whose whispers now held a new, uncertain note. The walk out felt longer, the eyes heavier, but the pressure was different. They had not broken. They had bent together, and had not snapped.
Only when the great bronze doors of the throne room thudded shut behind them, cutting off the murmuring crowd, did the composure crack. Naerys’s legs trembled. A small, violent shudder worked its way up from her core. Gwayne’s arm went fully around her shoulders, pulling her and their son into the shelter of his body, turning them down a deserted side corridor.
“Breathe,” he muttered into her hair, his own breath coming fast. “Just breathe. You were magnificent. You were a fucking queen.”
She leaned into him, her forehead against his jaw. The smell of him—wool, steel, him—was a bastion against the lingering stench of the throne room. Baelon stirred and let out a small, waking cry.
“He joked about her,” Naerys whispered, the horror finally seeping into her voice now that they were alone. “He joked about the dragons. He—”
“I know.” Gwayne’s voice was hard, a blade newly sharpened. He stopped walking, turning her to face him in the dim corridor. His hazel eyes were blazing. “And he saw nothing. He got nothing. He saw a lord and his lady. Unshakable.” He cupped her face, his thumb wiping away a traitorous tear she hadn’t felt escape. “That is our power now. He cannot touch that. Not here.”
From a shadowed archway ahead, a figure detached itself. An older knight in Hightower white, his face grim. Ser Willam, Gwayne’s most trusted man. “My lord,” he said, voice low. “A message just arrived. From Oldtown. Your father.”
Gwayne’s jaw tightened. The respite was over. The next move was already upon them. He took the sealed scroll, his eyes meeting Naerys’s over their sleeping son. The silent understanding passed between them again. The audience was finished. The real game had just begun.