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“Which egg did Daemon take?” Rhaenyra asked in a sense of deja vu she did not appreciate, as she and the small council sat around their meeting table in varies states of formal wear.
“The Prince Baelon’s, Your Grace.” The dragon keeper admitted with a wince to the black eye he was currently sporting. Rhaenyra felt her rage grow at the reminder of her dead mother’s last babe. It was the last thing she needed on the eve of her week of wedding festivities. Laenor had been understanding as Sir Harrold led her and her father from the feast, but Rhaenyra was not. How dare he?! Daemon did not get to abandon her to this fate only to take what he pleased still!
“Rhaenyra!” Her father called as she slammed her hands upon the table and rose without leave or care. Daemon had played with her emotions to much these last days and she found this to be the last straw. Throwing her chair as she paced to the door, she ignored the panicked calls for calm behind her. She had retrieved it once, and would do so again as she informed them with a slamming door.
Ripping every single ruby from her incredibly painful and outlandish feasts hair, she threw them to the ground as she walked. Let whoever came upon them have them. Rhaenyra did not care even as Sir Harrold and Sir Criston came running after her. No doubt her father’s bidding as both men paced stiffly. Sir Criston was the last person she wanted to see at present. A feeling that seemed to be mutual as he remained silent in a glare. Sir Harrold tried to speak over the pounding of rage in her ears but Rhaenyra slammed her chamber door in his face as her hair tumbled. Slamming doors, the only words she had left.
Yanking at the laces of her white and golden gown she traded them for her riding gear with an angered determination. The sun had set long ago and soft notes of jolly music filtered through her open window as she changed. She knew without doubt where she would find Daemon as she yanked her hair to settle where the wind would not whip it. This was deliberate and Rhaenyra had enough of these games. He abandoned her in that brothel. How dare he?! At her engagement feast of all nights?!
The rage saw her to slam her chamber door once more. Pulling her gloves more fully onto her hands she ignored Sir Harrold’s pleas to change her obviously made-up mind. Even the calls of her father went unanswered as he could not do more publicly when she made it to occupied space. Their guests looked at her quizzically but were pacified by her advancing father’s fake smile.
Rhaenyra found her eyes rolling as she spied her future husband among the crowd. A knight that had accompanied him was far to close for propriety’s sake as he whispered something to his liege. A blush bloomed across Laenor’s face, her presence not registering for either thankfully. Rhaenyra faked a tight smile to see her way out into the courtyard. Sir Harrold muttered the entire time asking her to reconsider on the orders of her father. There was no turning back she made to say to him. She slammed the carriage door once more in his exasperated face only managing a scowl for Sir Criston’s angered gaze.
She stewed as the startled footmen saw her toward the dragon pits. The streets were darker than they had been that night with Daemon. The dragon keepers were still moving in chaos upon her arrival. Daemon had left them in quite a mess as she imagined she was only a few hours, if that, behind him on Caraxes.
Syrax yawned as her rider approached, unbothered in the chaos of her attendants to Rhaenyra’s bitter amusement. Though her dragon woke steadily as she was led across the sands to her rider’s call. The princess swung herself upon her saddle with an urgency and flourish. Sir Harrold’s approaching image tried once more to call loudly that she reconsiders her course, but Rhaenyra bid her lady to the night’s sky.
The night was cold as she directed Syrax toward Dragonstone. The stars helped to guide her and Syrax, but Rhaenyra knew the way by heart. The wind whipped across her reddening cheeks as they flew. The clouds seemed particularly dense as Rhaenyra’s anger continued to keep her warm alone until fire light greeted her decent. The braziers of the bridge called her attention as Syrax saw her to the air of her ancestral seat.
She registered the whistling call of Caraxes upon the hill side as she circled to land. Her eyes zeroed in on the lone figure among the fire light as she snarled for Syrax to land as she had long ago. Her dragon complied as the stone beneath her groaned to their weight. Rhaenyra slid from her saddle as she stiffened to the shadow further down the bridge.
Daemon had a truly irritating smirk on his face as she paced closer to him. Baelon’s egg was clutched to his chest as it had been so many years ago to her utter rage. The black and red of his rider’s gear flickered in the flames he’d lit on either side of himself.
“Not bad. I had expected to await at least another hour. Syrax has gotten faster.” He teased as Rhaenyra grit her teeth. She stopped before him as he tossed her brother’s egg from hand to hand as if he had not a care in the world.
“Give. It. Bac- “She ground out only for Daemon to close the space between them. Rhaenyra jerked violently backward yet found herself trapped by the hand he laid upon her jaw. His lips were quick and all consuming as he sought her own without pause. The injustice of her true desire for it saw her to twitch. She shoved his torso violently as some of the anger that fueled her turned against her will to the fire that had consumed her upon that brothel. Something she’d tried to recreate with Sir Criston to no avail in her further frustration.
“What is wrong with you?!” Rhaenyra demanded as she stumbled out of his hold. “You steal my brother’s egg, leave me abandoned, and then this? What the fuck is wrong with you?”
Daemon’s snort of amusement was the exact opposite of the reaction she wanted in her outrage. Something she paced forward to make clear as she shoved him backward with both hands. He fell back a step as she advanced on him. One was not enough however, as Rhaenyra screamed and shoved him once more. Though that smirk of his did not leave his face, nor did her brother’s egg leave his hand.
“How dare you!” She screamed into the echoing night sky as no one made to interrupt them. Two figures alone upon the bridge with nothing but Rhaenyra’s rage to hear among gently wafting waves in the distance.
“Are you finished?” He taunted as she grew out of breath to her bodily shoving of him, eight steps from where they had been. That earned him another swat of her hand to his leather covered chest but it appeared Daemon wasn’t asking. He swallowed her wrist in his large left hand and she could not find any more rage to stop the embrace he pulled her to. Though even as he locked his arms and her brother’s egg behind her back, Rhaenyra refused to reciprocate where a deep part of her whined to do so. She’d always wanted him, and damn him if he didn’t know it now.
“That was not the place. This is the heir’s egg. And I dare.” He certainly did dare as he laughed above her head as she jerked sideways to his refusal to let go.
“Fuck you, Daemon.” She snapped as the rage ebbed in his silencing embrace. It was the most unfair thing she had ever experienced and he seemed completely aware of it to her horror. It was not fair that fire licked her skin where his laid. It was not fair she’d come from her wedding feast to a man who favored his own and that would never have her feel this. Nor was it fair that she could not recreate it in his absence.
“Hmm, eventually Little Dragon.” He further teased as she attempted to swat him once more but was not able. He held firm as she refused to embrace him in return, her arms pinned to her sides. That seemed to be the only thing to finally move that smirk as Daemon huffed an indulgent sigh many moments later.
“There was a loose end, Rhaenyra.”
“To what?” She snapped back into his right shoulder as comfort she did not want to like was easing all things Laenor and Criston from her mind.
“Fire calls to Fire. You took me by surprise, you will have to learn to excuse it. I certainly have you enough. It does not happen to me.” He snapped in a shade of her own anger. “You can stay angered about our first joining or you can see it for what it was and revel in the second.”
“You presume much, if you think I ever mean to let you touch me again!” She renewed her squirming in his hold to his frustrated huff.
“I do not presume, I know. This does not fall to any but our blood. Not one has been able to ignore this call once found. Nor do I wish to.”
“Make sense, uncle, or let me go.” She demanded as her stomach turned to knots; she did not know where from.
“Do you wish to further compare that idiotic Cole you tried to wipe me with? The dragon’s call of us is not deniable.” His voice lowered in pure malice Rhaenyra was not prepared for.
“How do you know that?” She stuttered as she found her hands finally came upon his sides unconsciously to hold onto him.
“I watched you do it. Nearly killed him for it that night…” A truly sinister growl of rage left him as he held her in renewed tightness. “…if it did not cement what I did not want to believe of your fucking siren’s call...” He trailed off as Rhaenyra could only hold her breath.
“You thought I would not see that you returned unharmed? Even confused and angry, Rhaenyra do not discount me so. I watched as you sat upon him in the bed that should have been ours that night.” Daemon’s hold turned sour as Rhaenyra could only wince in the truth of her regret. His admission was unsettling to say the least as it further tainted that night. She could only wish he’d not stopped behind that wall. A truly tiring and useless thought as she could remember the cold of pleasure house’s air on her half dressed being. Alone, nearly naked, in a room full of strangers to stare at her.
“I saw as you tried to find what I showed you, and couldn’t because I know…it wasn’t me.” Daemon declared as he swayed back to claim her lips in a bruising kiss, she sought to return more than allowed at present. But he did not appear finished as he was the one to jerk away from her then.
“And I knew what need be done as you tried to fake pleasure on his pathetic cock and regretted your decision. I watched as you gave him heights he could not give in return. And I will sever his head for it eventually. Saw him to still in a god’s damn minute. I stood there until you crumbled when he left. And I left you there to the consequences of your own making in retribution. You can not hide from me any longer. If I succeeded in angering you with this egg as well…well consider it well earned.” His leveled anger seemed to hurt her worse than the truth of his words.
“I was not hiding. You abandoned me! And Cole fucked me just fine.” She lied openly through clenched teeth as her own rage and indignance at his invasion of her privacy reared its head.
“Fucking gods, Rhaenyra! Lie to me again, I dare you! I didn’t want to hurt you in a fucking pleasure house to simply anger my brother!” He snapped with an almost painful tug of his embrace she returned to the leather of his ribs.
“But you’d steal my brother’s egg to anger me?!” She challenged once more not able to let this matter settle in such a way. His regret of that night was palpable between them and a sinister part of her was glad for it.
“For fucks sake!” Daemon groaned as he finally released her and she stumbled backward of her own accord. Hating herself just a shade as she missed his warmth.
“This, is not your fucking brother’s egg. It’s the heir’s egg. You choose it for your father’s heir. I took it as heir. Then I gave it to you upon your naming of such. And now it will pass to our son. From every heir to the next. You deserve far worse for taking that shit to bed, but I can forgive you because I know what this is and you’re young. It took too much to see you spite me as such, I will not let you deny it. You abandoned me in turn.” He declared without pause as his hand captured her jaw once more. Rhaenyra tilted into his hold in shame more than desire, yet found even now she could not give him whatever he seemed to be asking of her.
“Our…Have you gone mad?” She near screamed as she imagined him standing upon the wall of her embrace with Sir Criston. She was not Daemon’s to have in that moment. Nor was she his in this one. It should not move her to such guilt, yet she found herself grinding her teeth in dawning knowledge to his meaning. She was Rhaenyra Targaryen, Heir to the Iron Throne. He, let alone any man, did not get to lay claim to her. Least of all without her knowledge or will.
“Do you want to know, what that moved me to do? I tied up that loose end.” He almost to casually snorted as if he could see the turn of her thoughts.
“That woman was the bane of my existence for nearly your entire life. Yet I never truly had a reason to end her until now. Forever in my brother’s service.” Daemon laughed morosely as Rhaenyra’s eyes widened. Lady Rhea…he…by the gods he was serious.
“I tried everything I could to get a fucking annulment, do not look at me like that. I fought a fucking war!” He cursed as she paled, yet her heart screamed in the knowledge that…there were no more obstacles between them. She should be horrified in the knowledge he murdered his wife, and yet… Every touch could…be hers if she wanted it. He gave her the option in this after everything…and she thought he’d abandoned her to her fate?! How was this possible that she could misread this so completely?
“Daemon…what did you do?” She couldn’t help but ask as she grabbed hold of his steady hand upon her jaw and swayed to his lowering forehead upon her own.
“What had to be done to never see that shit again. That was not pleasure in that fucking Flea Bottom filth establishment. That was fire and…you fucking know what it is Rhaenyra. Don’t lie to me.” He jerked her willingly closer to him then as Rhaenyra found she could not deny it as he asked. This pull of his was an injustice but it was also…
“I’m…supposed to marry Laenor in five days.” She tried her last excuse to uphold her life and her word to her father.
“And yet here you are. With a widowed man, in a place of our heritage. Maester’s aplenty.”
“He’ll disown us.” She tried again in barely a whisper as his hold gentled to her feeble excuses. The truth now open, between them as she had not wanted to admit lest it do this. Open her once more to his hold. Acknowledging she wanted this was her undoing. That she could actually finally have him…
“Without question. But do you care?” Daemon snorted, his anger seeming to fall in the face of her dawning acceptance of his thumbs gentle path across her cheekbone.
“Can you even say it?” She snorted back to him in challenge, even as she playfully lifted her eyes to his.
“Is that what you need to sate your conscious, Rhaenyra? You need me to tell you I love you? Don’t you ever fucking think I don’t. The second I fucking had you I knew the shit storm of this was more than a quick fuck in a god’s damn pleasure house. I will never accept you want another again. Do you hear me?” He punctuated with a jerk of her jaw as he ground his forehead almost painfully into her own. “You get one choice. You marry me or you get on Syrax. Return to Viserys and your fucking duty.”
“A connoisseur of whores, and a bard. Charming Uncle.” She couldn’t help but tease as her heart finally lessened in its weight from that very duty. There was no choice to make there. It would cost her a throne. They both knew it. It would cost them both their relationships with her father. Yet…he was right…fuck if he wasn’t right this was what she wanted. This ease and peace in his simple touch. His heart hers where neither of them had thought to ask for such.
“Make your decision.” He snapped as she playfully snorted to the dying of his patience.
“If I’m to never know another, I demand the same. Will that be a challenge for you?”
“Hmm, guess I’ll just have to teach my wife the consequences of such a demand. You’ll be rather exhausted but I can’t seem to imagine you’ll care.” He smirked as his hands left her face to wander the edges of her curves.
“Then make me your wife.” Rhaenyra closed her eyes as she sealed their fates together. Daemon’s contented hum was bliss as his lips sought hers hungrily once more. Both able to enjoy such now in a frenzy of caged lust. She found a laugh as the egg she’d been so focused on rolled to a stop at her feet in a flash. Daemon swallowed the sound as it tapped at her to the bridge’s slope. Yet the fire she'd sought to deny wracked her limbs as his skilled hands tore at her leather’s clasps.