Chapter 5: The Hand's Summons
The summons came at midday, a scrap of parchment delivered by a stone-faced guard. It bore only the wax seal of the Hand. No words were needed. Alicent’s fingers were steady as she broke the seal, letting the blank paper fall to her dressing table. In the mirror, her reflection was a portrait of composure, the green gown high-necked and severe, her hair a fortress of braids. The trembling was all interior, a constant, low-grade vibration in her bones.
She waited until the shadows grew long, until the castle settled into its afternoon lull. She walked the familiar corridors, her footsteps echoing in the quiet. The guards outside his study nodded, their eyes sliding past her as they opened the door. She entered the smell of him—old ink, dusty parchment, the faint, clean scent of the lemon oil used on the wood.
Otto stood by the hearth, one hand resting on the mantel, staring into the low flames. He did not turn. The room was a testament to his mind: ordered, severe, devoid of frivolity. The map of Westeros here was larger than hers, dotted with pins of onyx and bloodstone.
“You sent for me,” she said, closing the door. Her voice was clear, a statement.
He turned slowly. His eyes, the same deep brown as her own, traveled over her gown, her face, her tightly clasped hands. It was the assessment of a mason checking a stone for flaws. “I observed your work last night,” he said. His tone was conversational, almost bored. “The technique was adequate. The timing of your… personal finale was a useful accelerant.”
Alicent’s throat tightened. So he had seen her touch herself, had seen the genuine, traitorous climax that had shaken her. She said nothing.
He crossed the space between them. He stopped so close she could see the individual threads of silver in his beard. He reached up and cupped her jaw, his thumb stroking the high bone of her cheek. The touch was gentle. It was this false tenderness that unnerved her more than any violence.
“You asked him to fill you,” Otto murmured, his thumb moving to trace her lower lip. “A pretty command. It evoked the desired result.” He leaned in, his breath warm against her mouth. “Now ask me.”
She didn’t understand. “My lord?”
“Ask me,” he repeated, his voice a soft whip. “To fill you. Use the same words.”
Shame, hot and bilious, rose in her throat. This was a new degradation. To voice the filth herself, to beg for it as a performance for him. She opened her mouth. The words were ashes. “I… I want you to fill me.”
“Inadequate.” His hand left her face. “You sounded like a wanton bitch for him. Do it for me. Now.”
She took a sharp breath, forcing the persona forward, pulling it over her like the sheer silver robe. She let her eyes drop slightly, then lifted them to his, allowing a false, glazed heat into her gaze. “Please,” she whispered, letting her voice grow husky. “I need your cock inside me. I want to feel you come in me. I want you to fill my cunt up, father.”
The obscenity hung in the air, colossal and ugly. A flicker of something—triumph, arousal, sheer dominion—passed through his eyes. He closed the final inch and kissed her.
It was not a kiss of passion, but of consumption. His lips were firm, demanding entry. His tongue pushed past her teeth, invading her mouth with the same deliberate thrust she knew his body would soon follow. He tasted of the strong, bitter tea he favored. He tasted of power. She stood pliant, letting him explore, her own tongue a limp participant. One of his hands tangled in the braids at the nape of her neck, holding her fast. The other gripped her hip, pulling her against him. She could feel the hard ridge of his arousal through their clothes.
He broke the kiss, his breathing slightly rougher. “Good.” The word was a puff of air against her wet lips. “Now, undress. Get on the bed.”
She stepped back, her movements mechanical. Her fingers went to the laces of her gown. She untied them with practiced efficiency, letting the heavy green fabric pool at her feet. The underdress followed. She stood naked in the firelight, her skin pebbling in the cool, bookish air. She did not look at him. She turned and walked to the large, canopied bed that stood in an alcove, a concession to practicality in the room of state. The sheets were dark, finely woven.
She crawled onto the mattress, the wool-soft fabric against her knees. She assumed the position he preferred, on her hands and knees, presenting herself. She heard the soft rustle of his clothing, the clink of a belt buckle. The mattress dipped behind her.
His hands were on her hips immediately, his grip bruising in its certainty. He kneaded the flesh, then spread her apart with his thumbs. She felt the cool air on her most intimate places, then the hot, blunt pressure of him. He guided himself to her entrance, the head of his cock a familiar, demanding presence.
He pushed in.
It was a slow, inexorable penetration, a reclaiming of territory. There was no gentleness, only a thorough, stretching fullness. He seated himself to the root with a low, gratified groan, his pelvis flush against her buttocks. He held there, buried inside her, one hand moving to grip the back of her neck.
“Tell me whose this is,” he commanded, his voice thick.
“Yours,” she gasped, the word automatic.
“Whose seed is still inside you, leaking out?” He began to move, a slow, deep withdrawal followed by a hard, punching thrust.
“Yours,” she said, again.
“And his?” Another thrust, harder. “Aemond’s. Is his here too?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” His pace began to quicken, the slap of skin against skin punctuating his words. “You are a vessel. You hold the future. You hold his obedience. You hold my will.” His thrusts became relentless, a brutal, driving rhythm that shook her whole body. His breath was hot on her neck. “You take it all, don’t you? You take your father’s cock as easily as you take your son’s. You are a perfect, filthy thing. My perfect creation.”
The words coiled in her gut, vile and arousing in their terrible truth. She stared at the grain of the wood in the headboard, her mind trying to flee. But her body, the traitor, was responding. A slick heat built between her legs, matching the rhythm of his possession. The soreness melted into a pervasive, swelling need. A low whine escaped her lips, unbidden.
He heard it. His hand slid from her neck, down her spine, to the junction where their bodies joined. His fingers found her swollen clit.
“There it is,” he grunted, his thrusts never faltering. His calloused thumb rubbed rough, exacting circles over the sensitive nerve. “The truth of you. You love this. You love being used. You love being the whore who binds a kingdom together.”
The stimulation was too much, too direct. It short-circuited her pretense. Pleasure, sharp and shocking, lanced through her. Her careful control shattered. Her back arched, a broken cry tearing from her throat. “Oh, gods…”
“Yes,” he hissed, his fingers working her relentlessly, his cock pistoning inside her. “Come for me. Come on your father’s cock. Show me what you really are.”
It was not a performance. It was an annihilation. The orgasm ripped through her with violent, unsparing force, a convulsive wave that clenched tight around his invading length. She shook, sobbing, her face pressed into the bedding, her fingers clawing at the sheets.
Her climax triggered his. With a guttural roar that was pure, undiluted triumph, he drove into her one final, profound time and held. She felt the hot, pulsing rush of his release, another claim flooding the space already occupied by his previous ones, by Aemond’s. He pumped into her, his body rigid, his grip on her hip iron-tight.
Slowly, he collapsed over her back, his weight a smothering blanket. He was breathing heavily, his sweat-slick skin sticking to hers. He nuzzled her hair, his lips near her ear. The filthy patriarch was gone. In his place was the father of her childhood, his voice soft, almost singsong.
“My good girl,” he whispered, the endearment a poison dart. “My clever, devoted girl. You have done so well.”
She lay crushed beneath him, utterly still. His seed, warm and thick, began its slow leak from her. The fire popped in the hearth. He shifted, pulling out of her with a soft, wet sound. He rolled onto his side, taking her with him, pulling her back against his chest. One arm draped heavily over her waist, his hand splayed possessively on her stomach.
They lay in silence. Alicent’s mind was a white, empty plain. She felt his softening length against the small of her back, the sticky dampness between her legs, the scratch of his beard on her shoulder.
“The village still stands,” he said, his voice now crisp, back to business. “He has not given the order to burn it. He spent the morning in his chambers, supposedly reviewing supply ledgers. He looks… rested.” Otto’s hand patted her stomach. “You have bought us three days. Perhaps four. The Tyrell terms will be settled by then.”
He was using her body as a desk again, reporting outcomes. She was a successful stratagem.
“What happens,” she heard herself ask, the voice flat and foreign, “when he grows bored of this? Of me?”
Otto’s arm tightened. “He will not. This is not mere boredom. This is a sickness in him you have soothed. You will continue to soothe it. You will find new ways. Be more inventive. Let him taste his own seed on your lips. Let him watch you pleasure yourself thinking of him. Bind him with decadence. It is a cleaner chain than fear.”
The instructions were clinical, exhaustive. She closed her eyes.
“You may go,” he said, after another moment. He released her.
She slid from the bed. Her legs were unsteady. She found her clothes and dressed with numb fingers, not bothering to clean herself. The physical residue of him was part of the assignment now, a constant reminder. She could feel it, a cooling slickness on her inner thighs.
As she fastened the last lace on her gown, he spoke again from the bed. “Alicent.”
She turned. He was sitting up, the sheets around his waist, a king in his rumpled domain. His expression was unreadable.
“You are not ruined,” he stated. “You are forged. Remember that. The realm needs the metal you have become, not the soft girl you were.”
She gave a single, slow nod. It was not agreement. It was simply acknowledgment of the words.
She left, closing the door softly on the scent of sex and parchment. The walk back to her tower was a blur. Maids curtsied. Guards stood straight. She saw none of them. In her chambers, she went directly to the basin. She poured water, cold from the jug, and washed her face. She looked up into the mirror.
The woman who looked back was not forged. She was hollowed out. A vessel, yes. But one with a hairline fracture, a tiny, spreading crack where the seeping cold got in. She touched her reflection, her fingers cold on the glass.
From the window, she could see the training yard. Aemond was there, a dark, graceful figure moving through the drills of two-handed sword, his movements precise, deadly, beautiful. He stopped, looked up toward the Red Keep, as if sensing her gaze. He could not possibly see her. Yet he stood, staring, the sword point resting in the dirt.
Alicent stepped back from the window, into the shadows of the room. She had soothed the sickness. She had bought three days.
And the crack within her widened, just a fraction, in the silence.
And the crack within her widened, just a fraction, in the silence. That evening, the silence followed her, a patient companion. She dismissed her maids with a curt wave, wanting only the company of cold water and her own ragged thoughts. The ritual of preparation was a solace, each stroke of the brush a temporary ordering of chaos.
The bronze mirror showed the Queen Dowager, her auburn hair unspooling from its braids, a dark river over her shoulder. She pulled the bristles through the length of it, one hundred strokes, the rhythm a numb mantra. The door opened without a knock. Her hand stilled. In the reflection, she saw him fill the doorway, a tall, lean shadow in black leather, his eye fixed on her.
Aemond closed the door. The lock clicked, a soft, definitive sound. He said nothing, simply watched the movement of her brush, his single violet eye tracing the line of her neck, the slope of her shoulder revealed by her night-rail. The longing in his gaze was not gentle; it was a hungry, consuming thing. He crossed the room, his boots soundless on the rug.
He stood behind her. His hands came to rest on her shoulders, and she felt the heat of them through the thin linen. He bent, his lips near her ear, and his reflection met hers in the metal. “Mother,” he whispered, the word a blasphemous caress. He stroked her cheek with the back of his fingers, a gesture startling in its tenderness. Then his voice changed, dropping into a low, ragged register. “Undress. Lie on the bed.”
Alicent set the brush down. Its clatter was too loud. She rose, turning from the mirror to face the reality of him. She kept her eyes on his as her fingers worked the ties of her garment. The night-rail pooled at her feet. The cool air touched her skin, and she saw his jaw tighten, a muscle flickering. She walked to the great curtained bed and laid herself upon it, on her back, her hair fanning out around her. She was a offering on an altar of green velvet.
He undressed with a swift, brutal efficiency, never breaking her gaze. His clothes fell to the floor. His body was a map of old wars and fresh tension, all hard planes and coiled strength. The scar cutting down through his socket gleamed in the candlelight. He joined her on the bed, his weight settling over her, his knees nudging her thighs apart. He did not enter her. He braced himself on one hand beside her head, his other wrapping around his own cock.
He was already fully hard, thick and flushed. He began to stroke himself, a frantic, feral rhythm right above her belly. “Look at you,” he breathed, his eye burning into hers. “My beautiful, dutiful mother. You take everything given to you, don’t you? You take his political advice. You take his seed.” His thumb smeared over the head of his cock, spreading the bead of moisture there. He shuddered. “Now you just take what I give you. Watch me. Watch me want you.”
His words were filthy, explicit, yet woven with a terrifying strand of devotion. “This cunt was made for kings,” he rasped, his hips pumping into his own fist. “But it’s mine now. It swallows me. It milks me. Tell me you feel it when I’m buried in you, even when I’m gone. Tell me you ache.”
“I ache,” Alicent whispered, the script flowing easily now, her eyes locked on his, a perfect mirror of compliance. Inside, a frantic dislocation spun. She was here, and she was also watching herself from the ceiling.
His movements grew more urgent, jagged. “You are the only quiet in this fucking castle,” he groaned, his body bowing over hers. “The only quiet in my head.” The confession was ripped from him, more vulnerable than any touch. His control shattered. With a choked, guttural cry, his release erupted. Thick, hot streaks landed across her stomach, her breasts, even a single droplet catching the hollow of her throat. He spent himself utterly, convulsively, painting her with a violent claim.
He stilled, panting, staring at the mess he had made on her skin. His expression was one of rapt, horrified awe. Alicent kept her shock prisoned behind her eyes, but a treacherous spark ignited low in her belly at the sight—the physical proof of his total abandon. He had unraveled for her.
Slowly, Aemond reached down. He dragged his finger through the pool of cum on her stomach, gathering a viscous string of it. He brought his finger to her lips, his eye demanding, pleading. She opened her mouth. She took his finger in, sucking it clean, the taste salty and bitter and profoundly intimate. A full-body shudder racked him, a quake of pure sensation.
He withdrew his finger, and then his mouth was on hers. This kiss was not like Otto’s calculated invasion. It was deep, desperate, and filthily carnal, a sharing of the taste he had just given her. She accepted it quickly, meeting his tongue with her own, her hand coming up to tangle in the hair at the nape of his neck. She moaned into his mouth, a sound of perfect performance, even as a part of her melted into the raw authenticity of his need.
He broke the kiss, his forehead resting against hers, their breaths mingling. “Three days,” he murmured, his voice raw. “I have three days before I must ride to the Trident. The Blackwoods are raising men.” He said it like a gift, or a sentence.
“Then stay here,” she whispered, her thumb stroking his jaw, playing her part to its conclusion, binding him with the chain her father had forged. “Stay with me.”
He looked at the come drying on her skin, then back into her eyes, and she saw the sickness Otto had named, soothed and hungry all at once. He nodded, a prince agreeing to his own beautiful captivity.
He nodded, a prince agreeing to his own beautiful captivity.
That captivity began at dawn. It was not gentle. He woke her with his hand clamped over her mouth and his cock already pushing into her from behind, her body still soft with sleep. He used her like that, in a grim, silent rhythm, his breath harsh in her ear, his fingers biting into the flesh of her hip. When he finished, he pulled out without a word, dressed, and left for the small council chamber. Alicent lay in the wrecked sheets, feeling the new wetness join the old, a ledger of use written directly onto her skin.
The second day was worse. He returned at midday, his leathers smelling of dragon and cold wind. He found her at her desk, attempting to parse a letter from Oldtown. He took the parchment from her hands, laid it aside, and bent her over the polished wood. He lifted her skirts and took her there, his thrusts driving her hips against the unyielding edge. The only sound was their ragged breathing and the soft, obscene slap of flesh. He came with a groan, his forehead pressed between her shoulder blades. Then he adjusted his clothing, retrieved the letter, and placed it back before her as if nothing had happened. “The terms are unfavorable,” he said, pointing to a clause about grain tariffs, his voice perfectly steady. “Tell them we’ll accept nothing above two-thirds.”
Now, on the third day, the frantic pace had solidified into something darker, more deliberate. It was late afternoon. The grey light was thick and heavy. Aemond had dismissed her maids hours ago. He’d poured wine but not drunk it. He simply watched her, that single eye tracking her every flutter and breath, until the silence became a screaming thing.
“Come here,” he said finally, his voice low.
She stood from the window seat. He was standing by the bed. He didn’t touch her. He just nodded toward the floor at the foot of the bed. Understanding was a cold stone in her gut. She walked over, the rushes whispering under her bare feet. She lowered herself to her hands and knees on the woven carpet, the posture of submission now as natural as breathing.
He undid his breeches, freeing his cock. It was fully erect, a stark, ruddy contrast to the black leather of his clothes. He moved behind her, his shadow enveloping her. One hand fisted in the hair at the crown of her head, not pulling, just holding, a claim of ownership. The other guided himself to her.
He pushed in without preamble, a brutal, deep invasion that stole her breath. He was not gentle, he was not seeking mutual pleasure; he was claiming, erasing, dominating. He set a punishing rhythm immediately, each thrust a hard, driving piston that shoved her forward on her knees. The grip in her hair tightened, keeping her head up, forcing her to stare at the embroidered coverlet dangling from the bed just inches from her face.
“You are mine,” he grunted, the words punching out of him with each snap of his hips. “This cunt is mine. Say it.”
“It is yours,” she gasped, the words forced out by the impact of him.
“Who does it belong to?”
“You. Aemond.”
“Again.”
“You.” Her voice broke as he angled deeper, hitting a spot that sparked white behind her eyes. “Only you.”
He fucked her like he was trying to reach her soul, to purge every other touch, every other claim. The room filled with the raw, wet sounds of the act, the creak of the floorboards under their weight, his animalistic grunts. Alicent’s world narrowed to the slam of his body into hers, to the burning stretch, to the degrading, undeniable scrape of the coarse wool carpet against her knees. Shame was a distant concept. There was only this visceral, brutal physics.
The door opened.
Alicent froze, her entire body clenching in a spasm of pure horror. Aemond did not stop. His rhythm hitched for only a second before he drove into her again, deeper, as if in defiance.
Otto Hightower stood in the doorway. He took in the scene: his daughter on all fours, his grandson fucking her from behind with a ruthless, animal intensity. His expression did not change. There was no shock, no disgust, no surprise. His face was a placid mask of bureaucratic attention.
“Your Grace,” Otto said, his voice perfectly level, cutting through the thick, sexual noise. “There has been a raven.”
Aemond’s thrusts slowed but did not cease. He turned his head slightly, his eye blazing over his shoulder. “I am busy.”
“Of course,” Otto replied, his tone neutral, agreeable.
He did not leave. He stepped fully into the room and closed the door behind him. He stood with his hands clasped behind his back, a patient courtier awaiting the conclusion of his prince’s business. His eyes, however, were not on Aemond. They were on Alicent. They watched the juncture where their bodies joined, watched the helpless shudder that ran through her with each thrust, watched the flush of humiliation spread across her neck and shoulders.
Alicent wanted to die. She wanted the stone floor to swallow her. The exposure was a violence worse than the fucking. To be seen like this, by him, in this most debased and vulnerable state—it unspun her completely. A low, wounded sound escaped her throat.
“Quiet,” Aemond growled, and his hand left her hair to grip her hip instead, his fingers digging in hard enough to bruise. He picked up his pace, spurred now by the audience, by the challenge. His thrusts became harder, faster, more possessive. “You see?” he said, the words ragged, directed perhaps at Otto, perhaps at the gods. “You see how she takes me?”
Otto said nothing. He just watched.
And under that cold, calculating gaze, something in Alicent shattered. The mortification was a bonfire, but the fire burned away everything but sensation. The sharp, deep drag of him inside her, the brutal grip on her hips, the utter exposure—it fused into a terrifying, unstoppable coil of pleasure. She fought it, biting her lip until she tasted copper. But her body betrayed her utterly. A climax, vast and annihilating, ripped through her without permission. It tore a ragged scream from her throat as her back arched violently and her inner muscles clamped around him in frantic, rhythmic pulses.
Her orgasm triggered his. With a choked, guttural roar that seemed to come from the depths of his being, Aemond slammed into her one final, devastating time and held. She felt the hot, urgent rush of his release flooding into her, pulse after pulse, as his body shook and trembled against hers. He collapsed forward, his chest heaving against her back, his face buried in her shoulder, nearly insensate.
The room was silent but for their ragged, gasping breaths. The smell of sex and sweat was overwhelming. Alicent hung her head, unable to look anywhere, spent and hollow.
Slowly, Aemond stirred. He pulled out of her with a soft, wet sound. He took a few stumbling steps back, righting his clothing with clumsy hands. He ran a hand through his sweat-damp hair, his breathing still uneven. He turned, his gaze focusing on Otto as if remembering he was there.
His voice was hoarse, stripped raw. “What is it?”
Otto’s demeanor did not shift a fraction. He unclasped his hands. “A raven from Harrenhal. The rivermen have intercepted a supply train destined for the Dragonstone bloc. They await your orders regarding the prisoners. It requires your immediate attention.”
Aemond stared at him for a long moment, then gave a single, sharp nod. “I’ll be right there.”
“Very good, Your Grace.” Otto offered a shallow, correct bow. As he straightened, his eyes flicked once more to Alicent. She was still on her hands and knees, trembling, his seed beginning to leak down her inner thigh. His glance held for less than a second. There was no warmth in it, no pity. It was the look of a craftsman observing a well-used tool, confirming it remained fit for purpose.
Satisfaction.Approval.
He turned and stepped out of the room, closing the door softly behind him.
The silence he left behind was different. It was vast and cold. Aemond walked to the washbasin, splashed water on his face. He did not look at her. “Get up,” he said, his voice now flat, drained of all passion. “Clean yourself. I have work to do.”
Alicent moved. Her muscles protested, sore and shaking. She pushed herself up, her knees aching from the carpet’s bite. She found a damp cloth, its coolness a shock. As she wiped between her legs, removing the physical evidence, she felt the crack within her widen into a chasm. She was an asset. She had performed. The village, unbeknownst to the prince now striding toward the rookery, still stood.
She had bought the realm another day.