Chapter 3: Moonlit Surrender
The silence in her chamber was a physical weight. Visenya stared at the carved dragonbone knights guarding her cold hearth, their silent vigil a mockery. She could still feel the press of the black sand against her back, the grinding heat of him, the shocking dampness left on her thigh. Her lips felt perpetually parted, bruised from the inside out by the memory of his tongue. For three days, she had moved through Dragonstone like a ghost haunting its own life, jumping at every footfall, her eyes forever darting to the shadows, expecting to see his form. Expecting, and dreading, and craving.
The approaching ships had been a supply convoy from Driftmark, mundane and noisy. The castle had buzzed with activity, giving her cover to slip inside, to scrub the sand from her skin in a basin until the water turned cloudy. She had not seen him. Not at supper, not in the yards. It was as if the earth had swallowed him after spitting her back out.
Now, deep in the night watch, sleep was a liar. Every rustle of her silk sheets was his hand. Every sigh of wind at her window was his breath. She burned with a restless, aching energy that had no outlet.
The lock on her chamber door clicked.
It was a soft, precise sound. The sound of a practiced hand, a thin piece of forged steel doing its quiet work. Visenya froze, her blood turning to ice water in her veins. She lay perfectly still, facing the wall, the blankets pulled to her chin. The door hinges, well-oiled, made no protest.
He was inside before she could draw breath to scream. Not that she would. She knew his presence as surely as she knew the beat of her own heart—a darkening of the air, a shift in the temperature, a focus so absolute it felt like a hand around her throat.
The door closed with a final, gentle thud. She heard the faint scuff of his boots on the Myrish rug, the whisper of his leather jerkin as he moved. He didn’t speak. He went to the window first, drawing the heavy crimson drapes fully closed, plunging the room into a blackness so complete it pressed against her eyes.
Then he came to the bed.
She felt his weight settle on the edge of the mattress, the frame groaning softly under him. The scent of him washed over her—cold night air, leather, steel polish, and that underlying spice that was uniquely Daemon. Her body betrayed her utterly, a flood of heat pooling between her legs, her nipples hardening to aching points against the linen of her shift.
His hand, cool from the night, touched her hip through the blanket.
“Turn over.”
His voice was a low rasp, stripped of all pretense, all royal command. It was raw need, given sound. She obeyed, rolling onto her back, her eyes struggling to find his shape in the dark. He was a silhouette of broader shoulders, the pale gleam of his hair the only certain thing.
He didn’t give her time to speak, to question. His hands went to the hem of her thin shift and gathered it, pushing it up her body in one rough motion. The cool air hit her stomach, her breasts. He yanked it over her head and tossed it aside, leaving her completely bare. She made a small, involuntary sound, a cross between a gasp and a whimper, and instinctively brought her arms up to cover herself.
He caught her wrists in one of his large hands, pinning them above her head on the pillow. His grip wasn’t cruel, but it was immovable. Iron.
“No,” he said, the word a ghost of breath against her cheek. “I look my fill.”
And he did. She felt his gaze like a physical touch, traveling down the length of her body. It scalded her. She was trembling, a fine, constant shiver that began deep in her bones. Shame warred with a terrifying, soaring excitement.
“Please,” she whispered, unsure what she was begging for.
“Please what?”
“I don’t know.”
A low, humorless sound escaped him. “Yes, you do.”
He released her wrists but didn’t move away. Instead, his hands slid down her sides, mapping the flare of her hips, the dip of her waist. They were calloused, rough from sword and rein, and they scraped against her soft skin, leaving trails of fire. He bent his head, and his mouth found the pounding pulse at the base of her throat. He licked it, then bit down, not hard enough to break skin, but enough to make her cry out and arch beneath him.
“Quiet,” he murmured against her skin, his breath hot. “The walls have ears, little dragon.”
He moved lower. His tongue flicked over one nipple, then the other, laving them until they were tight, desperate peaks. He sucked one into his mouth, his tongue working the stiff bud, his teeth grazing it with dangerous precision. A bolt of pure, blinding pleasure shot straight to her core, and she dug her heels into the mattress, a ragged moan trapped behind her clenched teeth.
He continued his slow, devastating descent. Open-mouthed kisses scorched a path down her quivering belly. He hooked his hands under her knees and pushed, spreading her legs wide, opening her to the cool, dark air and his relentless scrutiny.
She was utterly exposed. The most secret part of her, damp and throbbing, was presented to him like an offering. She tried to close her legs, a reflex of modesty so deeply ingrained it was muscle memory.
He stopped her with a hand on each inner thigh, his fingers pressing into the soft flesh. “Don’t,” he commanded, his voice thick. “Let me see.”
He looked for a long, breathless moment. Then he bent his head.
The first touch of his tongue was a shock so profound her entire body jolted. It was a slow, languid stroke from the very bottom of her slit all the way up to the swollen, aching nub at the top. She cried out, her hands flying to fist in his hair, not to push him away, but to hold on as the world dissolved.
“Gods,” she sobbed.
He didn’t answer. He ate. He feasted. His mouth was a wicked, skilled instrument of ruin. He licked into her, his tongue plunging deep, fucking her with it, the sound wet and obscenely loud in the silent room. He sucked on her tender folds, then zeroed in on her clit, lashing it with the pointed tip of his tongue in a rapid, dizzying rhythm.
“Daemon… oh, fuck… please…” The curses, unfamiliar on her tongue, fell from her lips like prayers. Her hips rose off the bed, chasing the sensation, fucking his face. She was mindless, a creature of pure sensation. The coil in her belly tightened, a spring wound to breaking.
He added a finger, pushing it inside her where she was desperately slick and tight. He crooked it, stroking a place within her that made her see white flashes behind her eyelids. His mouth never left her, sucking hard on her clit as his finger worked in and out.
It was too much. The world shattered. Her climax tore through her with the violence of a summer storm, silent but for the frantic rush of her breath and the wet, sucking sounds of his mouth. She convulsed around his finger, her back bowing off the bed, a long, ragged cry torn from her throat as waves of dizzying pleasure crashed over her, one after another, until she was boneless and shaking.
He rode it out with her, his tongue gentling to soft laps, drinking her in, until the last tremor subsided. Then he lifted his head. In the profound dark, she could just make out the glisten of her own arousal on his lips and chin. His eyes were pits of black fire.
“I couldn’t stay away,” he rasped, the admission dragged from him like a confession of weakness.
He moved up her body, his own trembling now. He lay beside her, his face buried in her hair for a moment, his breathing harsh. Then his hand shoved down the front of his breeches. She heard the soft, slick sound of skin on skin. He was stroking himself, his fist moving in a tight, frantic rhythm beside her hip.
The intimacy of it, the raw vulnerability, stole her breath more completely than the sex had. He was letting her hear this, see this—his own desperate need. He turned his face into the pillow, his shoulders tense.
After a few furious, silent strokes, he growled, a sound of pure frustration. He rolled away from her, onto his stomach. He shoved his breeches down past his hips, his cock freed, jutting and angry in the dark. He positioned himself over her discarded shift, gathered a handful of the linen sheet beneath him, and began to rut against the mattress.
It was primal, almost brutal in its simplicity. His hips pistoned, his cock sliding against the bundled fabric with wet, frantic sounds. His breaths were choked grunts, his fingers clutching the sheets until the fabric threatened to tear.
“Fuck… fuck… Visenya…” Her name was a broken chant on his lips.
He came with a stifled, guttural shout, his body seizing, his hips driving down one last, hard time. She watched the rigid line of his back, the desperate curl of his spine. She saw him spill, his release soaking into the linen sheets beneath him, a hot, secret stain in the dark. He collapsed, his forehead pressed to the mattress, his whole body trembling with the aftershocks.
For a long time, the only sounds were their ragged, slowing breaths. The scent of sex and salt and sweat hung heavy in the still air.
Slowly, he pushed himself up. He didn’t look at her. He righted his clothing with swift, efficient movements, his face averted. The Prince had returned, armoring himself in the aftermath of his defeat. He stood, a tall shadow amidst deeper shadows.
“This changes nothing,” he said, his voice hollow, dead. “It can’t.”
He crossed to the door, unlocked it with the same eerie quiet.
“Daemon,” she whispered to his retreating back.
He paused, but didn’t turn.
“It changes everything,” she said, the truth of it solid in her chest.
He was gone then, the door closing softly behind him, leaving her alone in the ruined dark, the smell of him on her skin, the proof of his loss soaking into her bed. She touched the place on her neck where his teeth had marked her. A tender, hidden bruise.
Outside, the wind wailed around the tower, and far below, the sea crashed against the cliffs with a sound like breaking bones.