Chapter 4: The Hand's Due
She did not sleep. The space beside her held only cooling indentations and the phantom weight of conquest. Her body was a map of violations—the deep, sore ache from Aemond’s desperate clutching, the sharper, more recent throbbing from Otto’s calculated use. Between her thighs was a sticky, drying mess, a grotesque mixture. She didn’t rise to clean it. She stared at the canopy, her mind a perfect, silent void. The dawn would come, and with it, the necessity of movement, of prayer, of pretense. For now, she was just a vessel, cooling on the shore.
The door opened.
Her breath hitched, a tiny, trapped sound. She did not turn. It would be Aemond again, returned to the source of his fragile quiet. She braced for the weight of his sorrow, the heat of his need.
Boots on the oak floor. A measured, familiar tread. Not the quick, restless pace of her son. The heavier, deliberate step of a man who owned every surface he walked upon.
Otto Hightower stood at the foot of her bed. He was fully dressed in his Hand’s attire, dark velvet and severe lines, as if he had just come from a late council. In one hand, he held a leather-bound ledger. His expression was one of mild assessment.
“You’re awake,” he observed. Not a question.
Alicent said nothing. She pulled the fur higher, a pathetic shield.
He rounded the bed and sat on the edge, the mattress dipping. He placed the ledger on the nightstand, next to a forgotten cup of mint tea, now cold. He looked at her face, then down the length of the coverlet. With a practicality that was more violating than any lust, he reached over and pulled the furs down to her waist.
The cold air pebbled her skin. Her nightgown was still rucked up around her hips, leaving her naked from the waist down. She made no move to cover herself. His eyes traveled over her, not with desire, but with a kind of inventory. They lingered on the faint bruises beginning to blossom on her inner thighs—Aemond’s frantic grip. On the visible slickness glistening at the junction of her legs.
“Hmm,” he murmured. He reached out and spread her legs wider with the back of his hand, a gardener inspecting a plant. She flinched. His touch was cool, impersonal. He used two fingers to part her labia, looking at the swollen, used flesh. His fingers came away wet, streaked with opaque, spent seed. He rubbed his thumb and forefinger together, thoughtful.
“A raven came in the hour of the owl. From the Crownlands,” he said, his voice conversational as he wiped his fingers on the sheet. “Your prince regent wishes to burn a village. Parchments, he calls it. Retribution for harboring some ragtag band of river lords. It’s a waste of men, of time, and of political capital we do not have. The Tyrells look for any excuse to waver. Burning smallfolk provides excellent excuses.”
He looked at her face now, his brown eyes sharp. “He must be distracted. For the next three days, his focus must be here, in this keep. Not on maps and pyres.”
Alicent found her voice, a dry rustle. “I cannot control his martial decisions.”
“You can control where he spends his nights. Where he spills his rage, and his seed.” Otto’s hand returned to her thigh, patting it. “Keep him in your bed. Keep him tired. Keep him… emptied. A man who is fucking his mother with this much devotion does not have the vigor for creative cruelties. He will be satiated. Compliant.”
The words were so crude, so coldly delivered, that they bypassed shame and struck a chord of pure, icy horror. She was to be a soporific. A chamber pot for his ambitions.
“You want me to…”
“I want you to do your duty for the realm. As you always have.” He stood and began unfastening his own breeches. There was no urgency in the motion. It was an administrative task. “We will practice. Your technique, I find, is adequate. But your mentality requires adjustment. You are not a victim. You are a strategist. This is another negotiation. The terms are simply written on skin.”
He pushed his breeches and smallclothes down just enough to free his cock. It was half-hard, thickening as he looked at her splayed form. He climbed onto the bed, his knees nudging her legs apart further. “On your hands and knees. Face the headboard.”
Alicent moved slowly, her limbs stiff. She turned, presenting her backside to him, her face pressed into the pillows that smelled of her own hair, of Otto’s sweat, of Aemond’s tears. She felt the broad head of his cock nudge against her entrance, still loose and wet from his earlier invasion. He pushed in without ceremony, a smooth, deep re-entry that drew a low gasp from her. He was fully hard now, a solid, stretching presence.
He did not move immediately. One hand wrapped in the hair at the nape of her neck, not pulling, just holding. The other splayed on the small of her back.
“Now,” he said, his voice calm, as if beginning a lecture. “The first matter. The grain tariffs from the Reach.” He drew his hips back slowly, then pushed forward, a deliberate, grinding stroke. Alicent’s fingers clutched the sheets. “Lord Tyrell proposes a reduction of fifteen percent, citing poor harvests. We cannot accept more than five.” Another slow, deep thrust. “The argument will be that the crown’s armies protect his fields. Your role is to ensure Aemond does not, in a fit of pique, threaten to withdraw that protection. Keep him… agreeable.”
He picked up his pace slightly, a steady, rhythmic pounding. Each drive punched a soft uh from her lips. The sensations were a confusing riot—the dull, full ache, the coarse friction, a shameful, building warmth that spread from her core. Her body, trained to respond, was betraying her again. Drops of sweat fell from his brow onto her back.
“Second. The Velaryon blockade.” He was breathing harder now, his speech punctuated by the slap of skin. “We need to offer terms… before the Stepstones situation… fuck… deteriorates.” His grip on her hair tightened. “Aemond wants their fleet burned. He must be persuaded to offer a pardon first. Use your influence. After he comes. Men are suggestible then.”
His thrusts became harder, less controlled. The ledger of state was falling away, replaced by raw hunger. He fucked her with a focused intensity, his hips a piston. The bed rocked against the stone wall with a dull, rhythmic thud. Alicent’s mind splintered. She saw the map on her wall. She saw Parchments village, little painted dots. She saw Aemond’s tormented eye. She felt her father’s cock burying itself to the hilt, over and over, a physical manifestation of his will.
“Such a good cunt,” he grunted, his voice guttural, losing its political cadence. “Taking everything. Giving everything. My daughter. My perfect, fuckable asset.”
The vulgar praise, the crude possession, lit a final, devastating spark in her gut. A climax tore through her, brutal and unwelcome, a seismic shudder that clamped her muscles tight around him. She cried out, the sound muffled by the pillow.
That sent him over the edge. With a harsh roar, he slammed into her and held, his body rigid. She felt the hot, sudden gush of his release, another claim laid atop the others. He pumped into her, spasming, before collapsing over her back, his weight immense.
For a minute, there was only the sound of their ragged breathing. Then he pulled out, a slick, obscene sound. He stood, fastening his breeches with brisk efficiency. He picked up the ledger from the nightstand. He looked down at her, still on her knees, trembling, his seed beginning to drip from her onto the rumpled sheets.
He took a corner of the sheet and wiped himself clean.
“You are the realm’s greatest asset,” he said, his voice restored to its normal, composed tone. “See that its Regent is properly managed.”
He left. The door clicked shut.
Alicent slid down onto her side, curling into a ball. The grey dawn was brighter now, illuminating the dust in the air, the empty cup, the ledger’s imprint on the nightstand. She felt the slow, sticky leak between her legs. Aemond’s desperation. Otto’s calculation. Her own treacherous, responding flesh.
She closed her eyes. When she opened them, her gaze was clear, dry, and hard. She rose. She walked to the basin, moving with a new, stiff purpose. She cleaned herself with cold, ruthless efficiency. She dressed in her most imposing gown, the dark green one with the high, intricate collar. She braided her hair into a severe crown.
She stood before the map, studying the painted dot that was Parchments. Then she turned and rang for her maids. The day had begun. She had a prince to seduce, a war to stall, a father to obey. The vessel was gone. In its place stood a instrument, finely tuned, its strings pulled taut. And she would play her part until either the music stopped, or the strings snapped.
And she would play her part until either the music stopped, or the strings snapped.
She sent for him after dusk, a note borne by a servant whose eyes remained dutifully lowered. It contained only three words, written in her precise hand: I am waiting. The command was a risk, a reversal of their usual dynamic where he was the desperate intruder. She bathed in scented oil, washing away the physical residue of Otto, though the instruction felt branded onto her bones. She chose a nightrobe of sheer silver silk, one Viserys had admired a lifetime ago, and left her auburn hair unbound. The chamber was lit by a single branch of candles, casting long, dancing shadows. She waited in the center of the bed, the map of Westeros a silent spectator on the wall.
He entered like a storm contained, his boots echoing once before he stilled. The door thudded shut. Aemond stood there, clad in black leather, the sapphire in his socket swallowing the candlelight. He smelled of cold stone and a faint, metallic tang she associated with Vhagar. His gaze tracked from her face, down the revealing drape of silk, to her bare feet. His expression was unreadable, a mask of polished stone.
“You summoned me.” His voice was flat.
“You pace the battlements. You see dead men in the shadows.” Alicent kept her own tone soft, inviting. She lifted a hand. “The dead cannot hold you. I can.”
The mask fractured. A raw, hungry thing flashed in his single eye. He crossed the room in six swift strides, his hands already at the buckles of his sword belt. It clattered to the floor. He tore at his own clothes, leather and linen giving way, his movements frantic. He was upon her before his last boot hit the rug, his body a long, tense line of heat against hers. His mouth found her neck, not kissing, but inhaling, as if stealing her breath.
“I can smell him on you,” he growled into her skin, his hands pushing the silk aside. “My grandfather. He was here.” His palm was rough as it cupped her breast, his thumb circling her nipple with painful pressure.
“He brings reports,” she whispered, arching into his touch, playing her role. “Only reports. This… this is yours. It has always been yours.” The lie was smooth, practiced.
He made a sound like a wounded animal. His mouth crashed down on hers, all teeth and desperation. He tasted of wine and bitterness. His knee shoved her legs apart. He was already fiercely hard, his cock jutting against her stomach. He fumbled between them, his cool hand sliding down her belly, fingers delving through her curls. He found her slit, still tender, and pushed two fingers inside. He hooked them, probing deeply.
“Wet,” he breathed against her lips, a note of awed triumph. “For me. Even after him, you’re wet for me.”
“For you,” she echoed, the words a seductive sigh. She wrapped her hand around his length, stroking him, feeling him jump in her grip. “Only for you, my prince.”
That broke the last of his control. He positioned himself, the broad head nudging at her entrance. He pushed in with one relentless, deep stroke, seating himself to the hilt. A choked gasp was torn from both of them. He was so big, stretching her, a filling ache that chased away all thought. He stilled, buried inside her, his forehead damp against hers. His eye was wide, locked on hers.
“Tell me,” he commanded, his voice a ragged scrape. “Tell me whose cunt this is.”
“Yours,” Alicent moaned, the performance taking on a life of its own. She rocked her hips, taking him deeper. “Your cock, your cunt. Fill it.”
A groan ripped from his chest. He began to move, a slow, devastating rhythm that felt like being unpacked. Each withdrawal was an agony of emptiness, each thrust a conquest. The crude words spilled from him, a filthy liturgy. “You take me so deep, mother. So fucking deep. Can you feel me in your womb? I should put a babe in there. My babe. Fuck. I’d keep you round with it, keep you here, just for this.”
“Yes,” she chanted, her fingers digging into the hard muscles of his back. Her body was alight, a traitorous flame spreading from her core. She didn’t fight the gathering tension. She let it build, fed it with the rocking of her hips, with the slide of him in and out. “Give it to me. Give me everything.”
His pace grew frantic, losing its rhythm. His thrusts became shorter, harder, a brutal piston. He was breathing in broken sobs. “Please. Please, I can’t… make it stop. The fire. The screaming. Make it stop. Mother, please.”
His pleading undid her. A wave of devastating pity mixed with the raw physical stimulation. She reached up, one hand cradling his scarred cheek, her thumb stroking the skin beneath the cold, glittering sapphire. She looked directly into his haunted eye, her gaze soft, encompassing.
“I have you,” she murmured, her voice a lullaby amidst the slap of skin. “Let go. I’ll hold you. Just let go.”
Her own climax ambushed her then, a silent, seismic detonation that clamped around him in tight, rhythmic pulses. Her eyes fluttered shut, a low, ragged cry escaping her lips as her body bowed beneath him.
Feeling her convulse around him shattered whatever remained of his composure. A wounded, guttural shout was torn from his throat. “Fuck! Oh, fuck, mother!” His hips stuttered, then hammered into her with a final, brutal urgency. He spilled inside her, a hot, seemingly endless flood that seemed to pull his very soul from his body. He collapsed, his full weight driving her into the mattress, his face buried in her neck. He shook violently, his tears hot and immediate against her skin.
They lay tangled, slick with sweat, joined. His breathing slowly eased from ragged sobs to exhausted sighs. The candles guttered. In the sudden quiet, Alicent stared at the tapestry above, a dragon with emerald eyes. Her body hummed with spent sensation. His seed, warm inside her, felt like a completed assignment. She kept her arms around him, her hand gently stroking his hair. She had done it. She had occupied the prince regent.
And as she felt the slow, steady beat of his heart against hers, she understood the terrifying truth. The performance had not been for him alone. A part of her, long buried and dutifully ignored, had been wanton. Had agreed. Had come. The strings were not just pulled; they were now threaded through her own flesh, and with every pulse of pleasure, they tightened.
The strings were not just pulled; they were now threaded through her own flesh, and with every pulse of pleasure, they tightened. She disentangled herself from his sleeping weight hours later, her body sore, her mind a cage. She washed, again, watching the water in the basin cloud. The ghost of his release swirled down the drain, but the phantom sensation of his worship remained, a deeper stain. She dressed in silence, the green gown from the day before waiting like armor. At her desk, she penned the summons with a steady hand, the ink black and final. Come to me tonight. I have need of you.
The note was a hook, baited with the one thing he craved beyond conquest: her stated dependency. She sat in the twilight of her chambers, having dismissed all her ladies. She did not light many candles. Shadows were allies; they hid the calculations in her eyes and the tension in her shoulders. She wore the silver silk once more, a uniform for this new, ugly duty. The silence was a held breath. Then the door opened.
Aemond stood there, not as a storm, but as a man summoned. He was still in his regent’s attire, but his hair was loose, a silver-gold curtain. His single eye found her in the gloom, and the change in him was instant and total. The cold rigidity of his public face melted, replaced by something soft and staggeringly young. A smile, genuine and unguarded, touched his lips.
“You need me,” he said. The words were not a question but a reverent confirmation.
“I do,” Alicent replied, extending her hand. Her voice was a low melody she had practiced. “The night is long. The quiet echoes.”
He was across the room in a heartbeat, kneeling before the bed where she sat. He took her hand, pressing his lips to her palm, then her wrist, his mouth hot and fervent against her pulse point. “I am here. However you need me.”
“I need you to forget you are a prince,” she whispered, her other hand coming to cradle his cheek. “I need you to be my son. Just for a while.”
A groan escaped him. He surged up to kiss her, this kiss different from the night before—less desperate, more devout. His hands rose to the shoulders of her robe. “Let me see you,” he murmured against her mouth. “All of you.”
She let him push the silk away, the cool air touching her skin. She leaned back on the bed, presenting herself. His gaze was a physical heat, tracing her throat, the slope of her breasts, the plane of her stomach, the thatch of dark hair at her junction. His own hands went to his clothes, fumbling with laces and buckles with an endearing clumsiness. He shed the layers of authority until he was just a lean, pale form, scars and sinew and the fierce, upright evidence of his desire.
He joined her on the bed, his body covering hers not with crushing weight, but with a trembling reverence. He kissed the hollow of her throat, the swell of her breast, his tongue circling one nipple until it peaked into a tight, aching bud. Alicent let her head fall back, a moan parting her lips. It was a sound she curated, a note of perfect encouragement. She arched her back, offering more.
“You are so beautiful,” he breathed, his mouth moving to her other breast. His hand slid down her ribs, over her hip, into the heat between her legs. His fingers, those long, sword-calloused fingers, parted her folds with exquisite care. “So wet. Already. For me.”
“For you,” she sighed, and to heighten the performance, she brought her own hands to her breasts. She kneaded them, plumping them for his gaze, pinching her own nipples in a sharp, bright gesture that made him hiss. “Look what you do to me. See how I want you?”
“Gods,” he choked out. He positioned himself between her thighs, the head of his cock nudging insistently at her entrance. He looked into her eyes, his own wide and vulnerable. “Tell me you want it. Please.”
“I want it,” she chanted, wrapping her legs around his hips. “I want your cock, Aemond. I need it inside me. Now.”
He pushed in, a slow, exquisitely tortuous invasion that stretched her to a familiar, burning fullness. He seated himself completely and paused, shuddering, his forehead against hers. His breathing was ragged. “It feels… it feels like coming home,” he whispered, the confession raw and terrible in its truth.
Then he began to move. It was not the frantic pounding of a man exorcising demons, but a deep, rhythmic claiming. Each withdrawal was slow, each thrust a deliberate, grinding reunion. His eyes never left her face. Alicent met his gaze, her fingers tracing the line of his jaw, the curve of his ear. She moaned again, louder, tossing her head side to side on the pillow, a picture of abandon. “Yes, just like that. You feel so good. So deep. You fill me perfectly.”
She was lost in the act, in the physical feedback of his body and her own responsive flesh, when a flicker of movement in the deep shadows by the door caught her eye. The door was open a mere crack, a sliver of black in the dark room. In that sliver, a shape resolved. A pair of eyes, reflecting the faint candlelight. Otto. He was standing there, perfectly still, watching them.
A cold spike drove through her gut, a shock that almost made her convulse beneath Aemond. Her breath hitched. Aemond, sensing the change, slowed. “What is it?” he murmured, his voice thick with concern.
She couldn’t let it falter. The assignment. She forced a gasp into a moan, digging her nails into his shoulders. “Nothing. Don’t stop. It’s just… so much. You’re so much.” She tightened her legs around him, pulling him deeper, meeting his next thrust with a fierce roll of her hips. She tore her gaze from the door and back to his face, pouring every ounce of fabricated rapture into her expression. “Make me come. I want to come on your cock.”
Her words, so filthy and direct, obliterated his hesitation. He drove into her with renewed fervor, his pace quickening, losing its measured control. The bed began to rock. Alicent kept up the symphony of sounds, cries and whimpers and pleas, her hands roaming over his back, her body moving in tandem with his. But part of her mind was frozen, locked on that dark slit in the door and the unwavering gaze from within it. She was a puppet on a bed, and her master was observing the show.
Aemond was close. She could feel it in the tightening of his muscles, the broken, ragged pattern of his thrusts. “I can’t… I’m going to…”
“Let go,” she urged him, her voice a hot whisper in his ear. “Come for me. Fill me up. I want to feel it.”
It was the final permission he needed. A high, pathetic whine broke from his throat, a sound of utter ruin. His body locked, then he was pulsing inside her, a hot, frantic flood that seemed to go on and on. His collapse was total, a boneless weight atop her, his face buried in her neck, his entire frame trembling with the aftershocks.
She held him, one hand coming up to stroke his sweat-damp hair, the other rubbing slow, soothing circles on his back. “Shhh,” she murmured. “I have you.” Her own body was quiet, untouched by climax, a hollow instrument. Over his heaving shoulder, her eyes sought the door again.
The crack of darkness was empty. But just as she looked, a shadow detached itself from the deeper black of the corridor. Otto’s profile was visible for just a second. He gave a single, slow, decisive nod. His expression was one of pure, satisfied appraisal. Then he was gone, the shadow melting away, the door remaining infinitesimally ajar.
Alicent stared at the empty space. The cold in her gut had solidified into a permanent, icy stone. She continued to stroke Aemond’s back, her touch mechanical. He nuzzled against her, a contented, exhausted sound rumbling in his chest. He was satiated. He was managed.
The performance had been flawless. The audience had approved.