Chapter 4: The Mating Attempt
The smell of sour wine arrived before he did.
Naerys was already in bed, the sheets cool against her skin, listening to the distant watchman’s call. The door opened with too much force, banging against the stone wall. Gwayne stumbled in, a shadow blotting out the torchlight from the corridor. He didn’t speak. She heard the clatter of his belt hitting the floor, the heavy thud of his boots being kicked away.
He crawled into the bed, the frame groaning under his weight. The reek of Arbor red and something darker, like rage, clung to him. He lay on his back, staring at the canopy, his chest rising and falling in quick, shallow hitches.
“He had the maester examine me,” Gwayne said into the dark. His voice was slurred, thick with drink and venom. “Like a stallion at auction. To see if the parts were in working order.”
Naerys turned onto her side, facing him. In the faint moonlight, she could see the rigid line of his jaw. “Gwayne…”
“Don’t.” The word was a cracked whip. “Don’t say it’s alright. Don’t say you understand. You can’t.”
Silence swallowed them again, deeper and more suffocating than before. She could feel the heat of his anger radiating across the linen between them. It was a different kind of distance, one that prickled against her skin.
Then he moved.
He rolled onto his side, facing her. His hazel eyes were black pools in the dimness, unreadable. He didn’t look kind now. He looked haunted, cornered. He reached out a hand, his fingers clumsy, and brushed them against her cheek. The touch was not tender. It was searching, desperate.
He kissed her.
It was nothing like the chaste press of their wedding night. This was all hunger and ale, a hard, claiming press of his mouth against hers. His tongue pushed past her lips, tasting of wine and bitterness. Naerys froze for a heartbeat, then responded. She kissed him back, a part of her wanting to soothe the beast in him, another part stirred by the raw, unvarnished need of it. This was not the careful ally. This was a man unraveling.
He broke the kiss, his breathing harsh. His hands went to the thin strap of her shift, fumbling. He yanked it down her shoulder, the fabric tearing with a soft rip. Cool air washed over her breast. He made a low, animal sound in his throat and bent his head, taking her nipple into his mouth. He sucked hard, almost rough, his teeth grazing the sensitive peak. A sharp jolt of sensation, halfway between pain and pleasure, shot through her. She gasped, her hands coming up to tangle in his chestnut hair.
He pulled away, sitting up to wrench his own tunic over his head. The muscles of his chest and arms were tense cords in the moonlight. He was breathing like he’d run a league. He pushed her back against the pillows, his weight coming over her, settling between her thighs. The rough weave of his breeches scraped her inner skin.
She expected him to fumble with his laces. She expected the same sad, mechanical ritual.
He didn’t.
He just kissed her again, a devouring, messy kiss, one hand cupping her breast, his thumb rubbing rough circles over her nipple. His hips ground down against hers, and she could feel the hard, thick ridge of him through the fabric, hot and insistent. A flush spread through her own body, a confusing, unwelcome heat pooling low in her belly.
Then he stopped kissing her. He buried his face in the crook of her neck, his breath scalding against her skin. His eyes squeezed shut, as if he could not bear to look at her.
His right hand moved between their bodies.
She heard the soft rustle of laces being loosened, then the slick, unmistakable sound of skin on skin. He was stroking himself. Right there, on top of her, his erection trapped between his fist and her stomach.
Naerys went still beneath him. Her hands, which had been clutching at his shoulders, loosened their grip. She gently rested them on his biceps, feeling the muscles quiver with each frantic, pumping motion. Confusion washed over her, cold and clear. He was hard—truly, throbbingly hard against her—but he made no move to enter her. He just kept fucking his own fist, his hips stuttering in a shallow, desperate rhythm against her hip bone.
“Gwayne?” she whispered.
He didn’t answer. A raw, feral moan tore from his throat, vibrating against her shoulder. He pressed his forehead hard into her flesh, as if he could disappear into her. His strokes became faster, harder, a brutal, singular focus. The sound was obscenely loud in the quiet room: the wet slap of his palm, his ragged panting, the creak of the bed.
Naerys lay there, a statue beneath his trembling weight. She was naked from the waist up, her legs spread for him, and he was using her body as a anchor while he sought his release elsewhere. The heat in her own belly turned to ashes. This was not consummation. This was something lonelier. Something sadder.
His movements became frantic, jerky. “Fuck,” he gritted out, the word a pained explosion against her skin. “Oh, fuck.”
With a final, violent shudder, he came. His body arched, stiffening above her. A hot, wet splatter hit her stomach, stripe after stripe of it, thick and sudden. She flinched, a tiny, involuntary jerk of shock at the unexpected warmth. He groaned, long and low, as the last pulses spilled onto her skin.
He collapsed, his full weight sinking onto her for a moment before he rolled off. He lay on his back beside her, chest heaving. Without a word, he grabbed his discarded tunic from the floor and wiped clumsily at the mess on her belly. The action was brisk, perfunctory. Then he dropped the soiled cloth over the side of the bed and threw his arm over his eyes.
His heavy, ragged pants slowly evened out. Within minutes, they deepened into the rhythmic breaths of profound, drink-sodden sleep.
Naerys didn’t move. She stared at the dark canopy, feeling the cold, drying tightness on her skin. The scent of sex and wine hung in the air. Her body thrummed with unresolved tension, a dull ache between her legs that had nowhere to go. Confusion swirled, thick and dense, followed by a sharp, penetrating loneliness that dwarfed any she’d felt in her captivity.
He needed her, but not in the way the world demanded. He used her presence, her body, as a catalyst for a release that had nothing to do with her. She was a fantasy stand-in, a warm, breathing prop. The kindness, the friendship—it was real. But this… this was the truth of his deficiency, laid bare in the most humiliating way possible. Not an inability, but a disinterest so profound it required her erasure even in the act.
A single, hot tear escaped the corner of her eye and traced a path into her hairline. She did not wipe it away.
Slowly, the deep, even sound of his sleep became the only thing in the world. The torchlight from the corridor guttered and died. The room was utterly black, utterly silent save for his breathing.
Eventually, exhausted by the whirl of hurt and perplexity, her own body surrendered. She drifted into a thin, troubled sleep, where dreams of falling were punctuated by the sound of her own name, whispered by a voice that never looked her in the face.
She drifted into a thin, troubled sleep, where dreams of falling were punctuated by the sound of her own name, whispered by a voice that never looked her in the face.
Dawn was a grey smear behind the curtains when she woke. The space beside her was empty, the sheets cold. Only a deep indent in the pillow and the faint, sour memory of wine proved he had been there at all. Naerys lay still, listening to the castle wake. Her skin felt tight where his seed had dried.
A soft knock came before the maids entered. They were quiet, efficient Hightower girls who never met her eyes. They poured steaming water into the copper tub before the hearth, scattering dried lavender petals that floated like tiny, purple corpses. "Shall we help you, my lady?" one asked, her voice a bland courtesy.
"No," Naerys said, the word coming out sharper than intended. "Leave me."
Alone, she slid into the scalding water. She scrubbed at her stomach with a rough cloth until the skin bloomed pink, trying to erase the physical memory of his climax. The lavender scent couldn't mask the phantom smell of him—sweat, rage, release. She sank down until the water covered her shoulders, hiding.
The door opened. She knew it was him by the way the air changed, by the subtle scent of leather, steel, and fresh sweat cutting through the lavender. Gwayne stood just inside the threshold, still in his training gear. A faint mist rose from his damp tunic. He was breathing hard, as if he’d run up all the tower steps.
She couldn’t look at him. She stared at a floating petal instead, watching it drift and bob.
"Naerys." His voice was gravel, scraped raw from shouting drills or from silence.
He crossed the room slowly. The heels of his boots were quiet on the stone. He knelt beside the tub, the wet fabric of his breeches soaking through instantly. He didn’t touch her. He just knelt there, his head bowed, the picture of a man at a shrine.
"I was a bastard last night," he said, the words blunt and heavy. "A drunk, dishonorable bastard. I used you. I treated you like a… a vessel. It was not knightly. It was not right."
A tear escaped her eye, tracking a hot path down her cheek to meld with the bathwater. She still didn’t look at him. "You were in pain. Because of me. Because of this."
"Don't." The command was soft, agonized. He finally raised his head. His hazel eyes were red-rimmed, shadowed with a self-loathing so deep it was a physical presence. "Do not forgive me so easily. Do not take my sin and make it your burden. I fucked up. I took my anger at my father, at this fucking farce of a life, and I took it out on you. I spilled my seed on you like you were a tavern floor. There is no excuse."
The crudeness of his words, the stark truth of them, finally made her turn. His face was open, ravaged. This was no courtly apology. This was a wound being cleaned with salt.
"I am sorry you were forced to marry me," she whispered, her voice breaking. "I am sorry my very existence is a chain around your neck."
He reached out then, his hand hovering just above the water near her arm. He didn't make contact. "Look at me. Please."
She did.
"I could not ask for a better wife," he said, each word measured and fervent. "You are the only good, true thing in this entire stone prison. You are kind, and clever, and you have more strength in your little finger than my entire line has in its history. I swear to you, by the old gods and the new, by whatever shred of honor I have left, I will never treat you with such disregard again. You will have your respect. Your dignity. If it kills me."
The promise hung in the steam-filled air. It was more real than any vow spoken before a septon. Naerys nodded, a tiny, shaky motion. He took it as permission.
He stood, grabbed a large, soft linen towel from the warming rack, and held it open. "Come out."
She rose, water sluicing off her body. He wrapped the towel around her, enveloping her in warm, dry fabric. His hands were gentle, thorough, as he patted her skin dry, his touch clinical and respectful. He worked silently, drying her arms, her back, the length of her legs. He knelt again to dry her feet.
From a chest, he fetched her clothes—a simple underdress of soft grey wool, then a gown of deep blue. He helped her into each layer, his fingers deft on the laces, his knuckles careful not to brush her skin. It was the most intimate act they had ever shared, and it was utterly sexless. It was an atonement.
When he was done, he stepped back. He looked at her, fully dressed and composed, and some of the terrible tension left his shoulders. "There," he said, his voice barely audible.
She reached out and took his hand. His fingers were calloused, stained with dirt from the yard. She squeezed them. "We are allies," she said, repeating their old, fragile truce.
He brought her hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles, a mirror of that first night. This time, his eyes held no defeat. Only a grim, determined sorrow. "We are," he agreed.
A second knock echoed, this one authoritative. Gwayne dropped her hand. "Enter."
A guardsman stood there. "Prince Daeron is here, my lord. He requests the Lady Naerys join him in the south gallery. He said something about… appalling tapestries?"
A faint, real smile touched Naerys’s lips. It felt strange on her face. Gwayne saw it, and something in his own expression eased, just a fraction. "Go," he said. "Go critique ugly art with your uncle."
She moved toward the door, then paused. She looked back at him, still kneeling by the cooling bathwater, a man washed clean of one shame but bearing the weight of a thousand others. The space between them was no longer just physical. It was a canyon carved by shared humiliation, and the first, tentative bridge of a painful new understanding had been built across it this morning.
She left him there, walking toward the promise of a familiar silver-gold head and a few hours of simple, undemanding company. Behind her, Gwayne remained on his knees, staring at the lavender-strewn water, already planning how to keep a promise that felt as fragile as the petals slowly sinking to the bottom of the tub.
Behind her, Gwayne remained on his knees, staring at the lavender-strewn water, already planning how to keep a promise that felt as fragile as the petals slowly sinking to the bottom of the tub.
The day passed in a blur of stilted courtesies and threadbare tapestries. Daeron was, as promised, an excellent distraction. His laughter was easy, his commentary on the hideous wall hangings genuinely funny. He pointed at a particularly dour-looking representation of the Smith. “Looks like he’s just been told his anvil’s been repossessed.”
Naerys chuckled, the sound still unfamiliar in her own ears. “I think it’s the brow. It’s practically a shelf.”
“A shelf for all the world’s troubles.” Daeron grinned, leaning against the cold stone wall. “Seriously, who approved these? They’re morale-sappers.” He studied her face, the laughter in his lilac eyes softening. “You doing alright here, Naerys? Truly?”
The direct question caught her off guard. She fiddled with a loose thread on her sleeve. “Gwayne is kind. The Hightower is… secure.”
“That’s not what I asked.” His voice was gentle. “I asked if you were alright.”
She looked at the miserable tapestry, the Smith’s woeful eyes. “I am surviving,” she said, which felt like the most honest answer she could give. “Some days are easier. Today is easier.”
He nodded, accepting that. “Good. On the easy days, we look at ugly art. On the hard ones… you find me. I’m usually in the library, failing to translate boring old Valyrian trade ledgers.”
“You speak Valyrian?”
“I speak dragon,” he corrected with a playful shrug. “Enough to shout ‘duck’ or ‘dracarys.’ Ledgers about linen imports? Not so much.”
She smiled again, and it felt a little less like cracking ice. For a few moments, she wasn’t a hostage or a wife. She was just a girl talking to her uncle about ugly art. It was a small, stolen thing, but she clutched it tight.
Dinner was a quiet affair. Otto’s gaze was a physical weight, a silent auditor of their failure. Gwayne spoke little, his replies to his father clipped and formal. He did, however, quietly slide a bowl of the lemon cakes toward Naerys when the main plates were cleared. A tiny, tangible fragment of his morning promise. She took one, the sweet tartness a balm.
That night, they prepared for bed with a new, awkward protocol. Gwayne turned his back while she changed into her shift. She did the same for him. They slid under the covers, lying a careful hand’s breadth apart. The space was a treaty line.
“Goodnight, Naerys,” he said into the darkness.
“Goodnight, Gwayne.”
Sleep, when it came, was not kind to her.
She was falling. Not through sky, but through the deep, gutted halls of the Red Keep. The stones were hot and slick beneath her bare feet. The smell was not of smoke, but of copper and cooked meat. She could hear him roaring. Her father.Daemon. The sound was not a human sound; it was the shriek of a dying beast, full of rage and impossible pain.
In the dream, she turned a corner. He was there, but not as she remembered. He was a broken thing, half-crushed beneath a mountain of black rubble, his famous silver hair matted with blood and dust. One hand, the hand that had once held Dark Sister, reached for her, fingers clawing at the air.
“Naerys!” The roar became her name, a desperate, guttural call.
His violet eyes, so like her own, found hers. They held no recognition, only a bottomless, animal agony. “Why did you leave me in the dark?”
She tried to run to him, but her legs were stones. The hot, coppery smell thickened, choking her. The ceiling above him groaned, and more stones began to fall, each one thudding against his body with a sick, wet finality. She opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came out. She could only watch as the light in his fierce, terrible eyes was snuffed out by the relentless rain of stone.
She woke with a gasp so sharp it tore at her throat.
Her body was drenched in a cold sweat, her shift clinging to her skin. The echoes of the dream—the smell, the sound, the devastating weight of his accusation—thrummed through her. A ragged sob escaped her before she could clamp it down. She trembled, drawing her knees to her chest in the vast, dark bed.
The movement jostled the mattress. Gwayne stirred beside her.
“Wh’ssat?” His voice was thick with sleep. He turned over. Even in the profound dark, she felt his attention sharpen, shifting from drowsiness to immediate alertness. “Naerys?”
“I’m sorry,” she choked out, her voice high and tight with shame. She hated this vulnerability, this showing of the raw, haunted core of her. “A dream. I didn’t mean to wake you. Go back to sleep.”
“Shhh.” The sound was soft, a breath of comfort. He didn’t hesitate. He moved closer, his arms going around her, pulling her back against the solid warmth of his chest. One hand came up to cradle her head, his fingers threading gently through her damp silver-gold hair. The other arm wrapped securely around her waist, holding her tight against the tremors wracking her body.
“Just a dream,” he murmured into her hair, his voice a low, soothing rumble against her spine. “It’s over now. You’re here. You’re safe.”
She tried to stifle the cries, but they came anyway, silent, shuddering things that shook her entire frame. He held her through them, his embrace firm and unyielding, a steady anchor in the aftermath of the fall. He didn’t ask for details. He didn’t offer hollow platitudes. He just held her, his chin resting on the crown of her head, his own breathing deep and measured, a rhythm for her to follow.
Slowly, the terrible images lost their edge. The scent of lavender from her bath earlier, still faint on her skin, replaced the phantom copper. The solid reality of the room—the rough texture of the linen sheets, the warmth of his body, the steady beat of his heart against her back—pulled her back from the memory of falling stone.
Her breathing eventually hitched, then slowed, syncing with his. The tension leaked from her muscles, leaving her boneless and exhausted in his arms. The safety he offered was not freedom, but in that moment, it was a different kind of sanctuary. It was real.
He felt the change, the quieting. He pressed a kiss, soft and fleeting, to the top of her head. “Better?” he whispered.
She nodded, a small movement against him. “Thank you,” she breathed, the words almost inaudible.
“Sleep,” he said. He didn’t let go. He adjusted his position slightly, keeping her nestled close, and within minutes his breathing deepened once more into sleep.
Naerys lay awake a little longer, listening to that sound. The ghost of her father’s eyes faded, replaced by the simple, profound certainty of the arm around her. The promise he’d made that morning—you will have your respect, your dignity—had just taken on a new, unspoken dimension. It was a promise of sanctuary, even from the ghosts in her own head.
She finally let her eyes close. Outside their chamber door, the Hightower stood silent and watchful. But inside, for the rest of that night, the dragons in her dreams were held at bay by the steady, protective grasp of the man who was her jailer, her ally, and now, in this raw and quiet way, her shelter.