Chapter 14: Another Son
The silence in their bedchamber was a thick, living thing. It swallowed the distant echoes of the keep, the faint snap of dying embers in the hearth. Gwayne’s armor lay across a chair, a hollow man of steel catching the low light. The room smelled of them—of the faint lavender from Naerys’s bath, of the leather and metal from Gwayne’s day, of the spiced wine they had not drunk.
Naerys stood by the bed, her fingers working at the intricate lace of her sleeve. The gesture was nervous, repetitive. The defiance she’d shown the court was gone, stripped away like the heavy velvet overdress she’d already shed. What remained was the young woman, alone with the husband who was both her jailer and her only ally.
“He will tell others,” she said, not looking at him. Her voice was small in the vast, tapestried space. “Criston Cole. He has the King’s ear. If he suspects… if he speaks of it to Aegon…”
Gwayne unbuckled his sword belt, the leather sighing as it released. He laid it slowly, carefully, atop the armor. “He gave his word. For what that’s worth.”
“And what is a Kingsguard’s word worth?” she asked, a sudden, sharp bitterness cutting through her fear. “My uncle swore oaths. Your father swears them every day. Words are just air. It’s the whispers that remain. They’re already talking about Baelon, I hear them in the corridors. They say he has your chin but my eyes, as if trying to solve a puzzle.”
He turned to face her. She had finally managed to undo the lace, and the sleeve slipped from her shoulder, revealing the pale, smooth skin beneath. A protective fury, cold and clear, washed through him. It was the same feeling that had gripped him in the alcove, but now it was mixed with something else, something that smelled of her lavender and the vulnerability in her violet eyes.
“Let them whisper,” he said, his voice low. He crossed the space between them. “Let them chew on their rumors until their teeth rot. It changes nothing.” He reached out and brushed the fallen sleeve back up, not to cover her, but to let his knuckles trail along her collarbone. Her breath hitched. “He is my son. You are my wife. This is the only truth that matters in this room.”
She looked up at him, searching his face. “But will it be enough?”
He didn’t answer with words. He answered by pulling the lace at her neck, the knot coming loose with a soft snick. The gown, deprived of its fastening, slid down her body in a whisper of silk, pooling at her feet like molten silver. She stood before him, naked but for the firelight painting her skin in gold and shadow. Her breasts were full from the child, her hips curved. She did not shy away.
His control, the careful distance he had maintained for months, splintered. It wasn’t desire, not in the way the songs spoke of it. It was a consuming need to claim, to banish the ghosts Cole had summoned, to seal their fragile pact with something that felt real and undisputed. To fuck the whispers into silence.
He gripped her shoulders, his calloused thumbs digging into her soft flesh, and turned her roughly to face the bed. “Bend over,” he said, the command rough in his throat.
A tremor went through her, but she obeyed, leaning forward until her hands flattened on the rumpled furs, her spine making a graceful, yielding arch. Her silver hair spilled over her shoulders, a curtain between her face and the world. Gwayne looked at the exposed length of her back, the swell of her arse, the vulnerable pink furl of her cunt already glistening with a wetness that betrayed her own turbulent feelings.
He fumbled with the laces of his breeches, his fingers clumsy. He freed his cock, already thick and hard, the head dark and leaking. He spat into his palm, a crude, efficient sound, and slicked himself. He positioned himself behind her, one hand spreading her arse cheek wide, the other guiding his tip to her entrance.
“Look at you,” he breathed, his voice husky with a dark awe. “So fucking perfect. All mine.”
He pushed inside, not slowly, but with one relentless, deep thrust that buried him to the hilt. She cried out, a sharp, choked sound muffled by the furs. She was tight, gloriously tight, her inner muscles clenching around him in shocked reflex. He held there, immobile, feeling her body pulse around his shaft, feeling the utter, possessive rightness of it.
Then he moved.
He set a punishing rhythm, pulling back almost entirely before slamming home again. The wet, filthy sound of their joining filled the room, louder than the fire. His balls swung, slapping against her clit with every drive. One hand anchored on her hip, fingers biting into her flesh, sure to leave bruises. The other fist tangled in her silver hair, yanking her head back, arching her neck.
“You hear me, Naerys?” he grunted, the words punched out of him with each thrust. “You are mine. This cunt is mine. This womb is mine. I’ll fill it. I’ll put another son in you. I’ll see you round with my child again and let every fucking courtier who doubts it choke on their envy.”
It was brutality laced with a desperate pledge. His words were obscene, violent, but beneath them ran the unspoken vow: I will protect what is mine. I will build a fortress of this act.
Naerys gasped, her body rocking under his. Pain and pleasure twisted together, inseparable. The raw stretch of him, the dominating force of his taking, shattered the last of her icy control. A ragged moan tore from her throat. “Gwayne…!”
“Come for me,” he demanded, his hand leaving her hip to slide around her front, fingers finding her swollen clit. He rubbed hard, fast circles, the pressure exquisite and cruel. “Come on my cock. Let me feel you.”
Her climax took her violently. Her inner walls convulsed around his shaft, a series of frantic, milking spasms that ripped a hoarse shout from her lips. Her body shook, held up only by his grip in her hair and the relentless piston of his hips. The sight, the feel of it, undid him. With a final, deep snarl, he drove into her as hard as he could, his own release surging up from his balls, hot and endless as he spilled his seed deep inside her. He ground his hips against her, pumping every last drop, marking his claim in the most primal way he knew.
He collapsed forward, his sweat-slicked chest plastered to her back, his face buried in her tangled hair. His breath sawed in and out, hot against her neck. They stayed like that, joined, dripping, utterly spent.
Slowly, the world seeped back in. The rough texture of the furs under her cheek. The ache between her legs. The solid, heavy weight of him pinning her down. She felt… claimed. Empty and full all at once.
His grip in her hair loosened, becoming a caress. He nuzzled her neck, his lips soft against the sweat-damp skin. “Naerys,” he murmured, the earlier fury gone, replaced by a raw tenderness.
“Gwayne,” she whispered back, her voice wrecked. “Are you alright?”
He stilled. Then, with a gentleness that belied the ferocity of minutes before, he withdrew from her body and turned her to face him. He cupped her face, his thumbs wiping at the tears she hadn’t known she’d shed. He looked into her eyes, his hazel gaze clear and unwavering.
He kissed her. It was deep, slow, and tasting of salt and sex. A seal.
“Always, my love,” he breathed against her lips. “With you, always.”
He lifted her, her body limp and pliant, and laid her in the center of the bed. He fetched a damp cloth and cleaned her with a meticulous care, attending to the mess between her thighs, the red marks on her hip. He then slid in beside her, pulling the heavy furs over them both, tucking her back against his chest, his arm a protective band across her stomach.
In the dark, with his even breath warming her hair, the fear and the whispers felt distant. Here was a different truth, written in sweat and seed and a held-tight silence. It was a fragile peace, bought with raw need, but for now, in the heart of the enemy’s stronghold, it was enough.
It was a fragile peace, bought with raw need, but for now, in the heart of the enemy’s stronghold, it was enough.
Morning found them in the godswood, a rare hour stolen before the court’s machinery engaged. Sunlight dappled through the red leaves of the heart tree, its carved face weeping slow, crimson sap. Gwayne sat on a mossy stone, Naerys beside him, her head resting lightly on his shoulder. Between them on a spread blanket, Baelon kicked his small feet, gurgling at the play of light and shadow. The bruise on Naerys’s hip, hidden under her gown, throbbed in a way that felt less like injury and more like a seal.
“He likes the leaves,” Naerys said, her voice still carrying a morning huskiness.
“He has his mother’s eye for color,” Gwayne replied, his thumb tracing idle circles on her arm. The memory of her body clenching around him, the raw sounds she’d made, flashed behind his eyes. It blended strangely with the quiet here, the smell of damp earth and cold stone. It was all part of the same pact now.
The crunch of boots on gravel broke the spell. Gwayne’s hand stilled, his body tensing minutely before he recognized the visitor. Prince Daeron Targaryen, the youngest of the king’s brothers, approached. He wore simple leathers, his silver-gold hair bright in the gloom. His face, often marked with a scholar’s placidity, was alive with a subdued excitement.
“Niece. Uncle Gwayne,” Daeron said, offering a polite nod. His eyes, a lighter violet than Naerys’s, went immediately to the babe. “I heard you might be seeking solace here. It’s far preferable to the stink of the council chambers.”
“Daeron,” Naerys said, a genuine smile touching her lips. She had always had a softness for her bookish uncle. “It’s good to see you.”
“And you,” Daeron said. He shifted his weight, his hands held behind his back. “The little prince looks strong. It gives me hope.” He paused, the excitement brimming over. “I have brought something. For him.”
He brought his hands forward. Cradled in a fold of dark velvet was an egg. It was larger than a man’s fist, its scales a deep, shifting cobalt that shimmered with whispers of sea-green and copper where the light caught them. It seemed to drink the forest gloom and pulse with a faint, internal warmth.
Naerys’s breath caught. She leaned forward, her silver hair slipping over her shoulder. Slowly, as if reaching for a ghost, she took the egg from his hands. The weight of it was profound, dense and humming. She cradled it, her thumbs stroking the strange, petrified scales.
“Gods,” she whispered, her voice full of awe and dread. She looked up at Daeron, her violet eyes wide. “Has the King allowed this?”
Daeron’s expression hardened, a flicker of the dragon’s defiance in his scholarly gaze. “My brother the King is occupied with tariffs and timber.” He said the words with a quiet, deliberate edge. “Baelon is the blood of the dragon. This is his birthright. It has slept in a vault of Dragonpit long enough. It should be with its rider.”
The air in the godswood changed. The peaceful moisture felt suddenly cloying, the weeping face of the heart tree more a stare of judgment. Gwayne looked from the awe-struck terror on his wife’s face to the defiant pride on Daeron’s. He saw not a gift, but a lit fuse. This was no toy. It was a declaration, a resurrection. In Naerys’s hands, the deep blue egg felt like the first cold, hard scale of a future they could not control.
The egg’s weight was a profound anchor in Naerys’s hands. She could not speak. Daeron watched her, his scholarly face pale with the magnitude of his own act. Gwayne stared at the cobalt shell, its subtle shimmer seeming to pulse in time with his own quickened heartbeat. This was not a gift. It was a condemnation dressed in scale and stone.
“You cannot take this back,” Naerys finally said, her voice a thin strand of sound.
“I will not,” Daeron replied. He touched the egg once, a reverent brush of his fingertips. “Keep it warm. Near the fire. Near him. Who knows what sleeps?” With a final, unreadable look at his niece, he turned and left them alone with the heart tree and the dangerous future in their hands.
Back in their chambers, they placed the egg in a wrought iron cradle near the hearth, swaddled in black wool. It drank the firelight, glowing with a sullen, secret energy. Baelon, oblivious, slept in his crib. Naerys stood between the two—her son, her dynasty’s hope; the egg, her dynasty’s curse. She wrapped her arms around herself.
She wrapped her arms around herself. The silence was no longer peaceful, but charged, like the air before a storm. The egg absorbed the fire’s crackle, making the room feel colder.
“Daeron has signed our death warrant,” Naerys said, her voice flat. “If Aegon finds that here…”
“He won’t.” Gwayne’s voice was firm, but his mind raced through contingencies. He walked to her, turning her from the hearth. Her face was pale, her eyes huge. The fear in them sparked something fierce in his chest. He needed to burn it out, for both of them. He needed to feel something real, something hotter than dread.
He kissed her, a hard, consuming press of lips that was more possession than comfort. His hands came up to fist in the silk at her shoulders. “He will not take anything else from you,” he growled against her mouth. He walked her backward until her knees hit the edge of the bed. “Not a son. Not a stone. Nothing.”
He didn’t undress her with ceremony. He pushed the gown down, the fabric tearing at the shoulder seam with a sharp rip. She gasped, but her hands came up to claw at the laces of his tunic, helping him. Their breaths were harsh, synchronous. They were a tangle of urgent limbs, shedding clothes, falling onto the furs. Skin met skin, still carrying the chill from the godswood.
Gwayne slid down her body, his mouth leaving a heated trail. He hooked his hands under her knees, spreading her wide. He looked at her cunt, pink and glistening, and lowered his head. His tongue licked a broad, slow stripe from her opening to her clit.
“Fuck,” she moaned, her back arching off the bed.
He didn’t tease. He ate her with a single-minded hunger, his tongue plunging inside her, then circling her clit with rough, rapid strokes. He used his lips, his teeth, consuming her. Her thighs trembled against his ears. Her fingers tangled in his chestnut hair, not guiding, just holding on. The wet, sucking sounds were obscenely loud, a stark contrast to the silent, judging egg by the fire.
“Gwayne, I’m… please…” she begged, her words fracturing.
He lifted his head, his chin slick. “Come on my tongue,” he commanded, his voice gravel. “Then you’ll come on my cock.”
He sealed his mouth over her again and she shattered, a raw cry tearing from her throat as her hips bucked against his face. He drank her climax, relentless, until her shakes subsided into tremors. Then he moved up her body, his cock, thick and veined, nudging at her soaked entrance. He pushed inside in one deep, claiming stroke, burying himself in her pulsing heat.
“Gods,” he hissed, his head dropping to her shoulder. She was so fucking tight, so hot, her inner muscles still fluttering from her orgasm. He began to move, a deep, rolling rhythm that hit the very end of her. Each thrust jarred a gasp from her lungs.
“Look at me,” he demanded.
Her violet eyes, blurred with pleasure, focused on his. He saw the fear there, yes, but also a defiant fire. He saw her. He slammed into her, again and again, the bed frame groaning in protest. His thumb found her clit, rubbing in tight circles as he fucked her.
“This is what’s real,” he grunted, sweat dripping from his brow onto her chest. “This heat. This. Not their politics. Not their fucking whispers.” His pace grew frenetic, losing its rhythm, driven by pure need. “You’re mine. Tell me.”
“Yours,” she choked out, her nails scoring down his back. “I’m yours.”
Her second climax seized her, a tighter, deeper convulsion that milked his cock. He gasped, his own control vaporizing. With a final, brutal thrust, he came, his release flooding her, a hot, endless pulse as he ground his hips against her. He collapsed, his weight pressing her into the mattress, their hearts hammering a frantic, shared tattoo against each other’s skin.
Long minutes later, he rolled to his side, taking her with him. They lay tangled, slick and spent. The egg by the fire seemed just a dark stone again.
“I must speak to Alicent,” he murmured into her hair, his voice rough. “Before rumors about the egg reach Aegon from lips less friendly than mine. She may… mitigate his reaction.”
Naerys nodded silently, her fingers tracing the fresh welts on his back.
He found the Dowager Queen in her solar, a riot of green tapestry and the astringent scent of medicinal tinctures. She was embroidering, her hands steady, but her eyes were tired oceans.
“Sister,” he said.
“Gwayne.” She set her hoop aside. “You look like a man with a burden. Sit.”
He did, leaning forward, elbows on his knees. “Daeron Targaryen visited the godswood today. He gave Naerys a dragon’s egg. For Baelon.”
Alicent’s needle-sharp composure didn’t flicker, but her eyes turned to ice. “That sentimental fool.” She sighed, a sound of profound exhaustion. “He resurrects ghosts to feel like a dragon himself. Where is it?”
“In our chambers. Hidden, for now.”
“Keep it that way. I will speak to Aegon.” She said it with the weary certainty of a mother who had spent a lifetime steering a stubborn son. “He is paranoid, not stupid. Taking a hard-won babe’s bauble would make him look petty, fearful. I will find the words. He will see reason, or he will at least be persuaded to overlook it.” She studied him. “That is not your only burden.”
Gwayne ran a hand through his hair. The vulnerability was a strange, uncomfortable garment to wear in this den of calculation. But she was his sister.
“No,” he admitted. “Cole approached me. He… knows. Or suspects. About my nature. He spoke filth about Naerys, about Baelon’s parentage.”
Alicent’s lips pressed into a thin line. “I will have words with the Lord Commander as well. Ser Criston forgets his station.” Her gaze softened, just a fraction. “And your marriage? Is it… bearing the weight of these pressures?”
He looked at the fire. He could still smell Naerys on his skin. “I did not think it would,” he began, the words coming slowly, unearthed from a deep place. “You know the truth of me. It was a duty. A quiet, desperate transaction.” He met her eyes. “It is not that anymore. I care for her, Alicent. Deeply. She is not what I expected. She’s stronger than all of us, and she sees me. Not the second son, not the political tool. Just me.”
Alicent remained silent, listening.
A faint, disbelieving smile touched his lips. “No one is more shocked than I am. That I can… perform. That I can want her. It’s not a fumbling pretense. When I’m with her, it’s… different. It’s a need. To be close. To claim and be claimed in return. It’s real.” He leaned back, the confession hanging in the herb-scented air. “I cherish them. My son. Her. They are my family. It is a fulfillment I never imagined possible.”
Alicent watched him for a long moment. The stern lines of her face relaxed, revealing not the Dowager Queen, but the sister who had once bandaged his skinned knees. A rare, genuine warmth lit her tired eyes.
“Good,” she said, the single word carrying the weight of a blessing. “Then you have found something in this wreckage that I did not. Guard it, Gwayne. Nurture it. It is the only thing that will make any of this worth the blood it cost.”
She picked up her embroidery again, the subject closed. “Leave the egg to me. Go back to your wife.”
He stood, feeling lighter and more terrified than when he entered. The political storm was gathering, but he had an anchor. He walked back through the serpentine halls, not toward a duty, but toward a home.