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"XV. The Devil- Ravage, violence, vehemence, extraordinary efforts, force, fatality; that which is predestined but is not for this reason evil." -A.E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot
Daemon guided Rhaenyra through the shadowed halls of the pleasure house, all around them a blur of the bodies of those taking what they wanted without regard for anything other than their own enjoyment. She followed him, enthralled, too mesmerized by stolen glimpses of bare flesh entwined in curious acts to spare any thought for where he might be taking her.
“Fucking is a pleasure, you see,” he murmured, his breath warm against her cheek. “For the woman, as it is for a man.”
She certainly saw-- and heard and smelled-- a flood of sighs and sweat overwhelming her senses, awakening a heat inside her she was eager to explore. Alicent had told her that sex was a duty to be endured rather than enjoyed, and as Rhaenyra listened to the countless women around her crying out in bliss, she realized that Alicent had lied to her, perhaps to spare her the thought of her father engaged in such acts—but more likely out of pure spite. What other secrets was her erstwhile friend keeping from her?
Daemon’s hand tightened around hers as he pushed aside a dingy curtain that hung across a doorway, and her heart began to race as she wondered if he were taking her somewhere they could be alone. But she quickly discovered that this room, like all the others, was full of people in pairs and trios, albeit so focused on taking their pleasure that she and her uncle might as well have been invisible. Perhaps that illusion of privacy was what convinced Daemon that this was the place to take her in his arms and kiss her.
He claimed her with lips that tasted of woodsmoke and ambition, and she surrendered to him willingly. She tangled her fingers in his hair and met him with equal aggression, teeth and tongues engaged in a battle to consume each other while his arms embraced her with a dragonrider’s strength. When he pressed her back against the stone wall, she allowed its sturdiness to hold her up, because the gods knew her legs were about to give out.
He broke the kiss and stepped back so he could look her over with hunger gleaming in his amethyst eyes. Even without his mouth upon hers, Rhaenyra found it hard to breathe, especially when he began to loosen the laces of her shirt and brushed the tips of his fingers along the top of her breast. He considered her like a direwolf trying to decide how best to devour a lamb, his expression terrifying and thrilling her in equal parts.
She had the span of half a heartbeat to see decision light in his eyes; then he whirled her with dizzying speed so she faced the wall, and she steadied herself with palms against the cool, rough stone. His fingers deftly unlaced her breeches and tugged them to her knees. The thought flitted across her mind at how different this was from the scenarios she’d imagined, fantasies of Daemon tenderly shedding each layer of her finery before lovingly deflowering her—but stealing her out of the palace in the dead of night to hastily consummate their years-long flirtation with forbidden romance did seem much truer to the Rogue Prince’s tendencies.
One of his hands snaked beneath her shirt to fondle her breast while the other dove to the crux of her thighs, his palm cradling her mound as his fingers sought the part of her that was already slick with want and silently begged for his touch. When he found it, Rhaenyra learned how it must feel to be consumed from within by dragonfire.
She gasped and leaned back against his chest, letting the scent of his skin ground her lest she be driven mad by the sudden rush of sensation coursing through her. She felt the vibration of his quiet laughter as he stroked her relentlessly, regardless of how overcome she was. Daemon always did strive to challenge her in surprising ways, so why should this be any different?
He pinched her hardened nipple just tightly enough to draw a hiss of pain out of her and asked in softly whispered High Valyrian, “Do you like this, my princess?”
It took all her willpower to summon her voice, but she managed to breathe a husky reply: “Issa.”
Yes.
Rhaenyra had spent enough nights alone in her chambers exploring her body beneath her silken sheets to know how release felt, but with Daemon’s hand instead of her own working her tender flesh, she found that not only was the feeling of her impending peak magnified a hundredfold, but she reached that precipice at an almost shameful speed. She shifted her hips so that his fingertips grazed her just so, and feeling his hardness throb beneath his breeches against the small of her back as she moved pushed her to the brink. Her fingers trembled as they flexed against the wall; he moved the hand that wasn’t occupied with her pleasure so that it covered hers and squeezed it tightly.
“Come for me,” he commanded, still speaking Valyrian, and she had no choice but to obey. She cried out, uninhibited, without regard for the eyes about the room that turned to watch the heir to the Seven Kingdoms come undone.
When the last shudder of release coursed through her, she sagged against Daemon in a satisfied daze. How fitting it was that the first man to touch her like this was him, for Daemon Targaryen was as much her destiny as Aegon the Conqueror’s Song of Ice and Fire; it was only right that they should have each other in body and soul—even in the shadows of the Street of Silk.
She needed him inside her that instant, could no longer bear the feeling of emptiness in her core. She turned in his arms and reached for the waist of his breeches, but he stepped away from her. Undaunted, she turned her face upward to kiss him and discovered that all the lust she had seen in his eyes had drained away to be replaced by utter loathing—and none of it directed at her. Suddenly she wanted to hold him for an entirely different reason, but once again, he evaded her embrace.
“Daemon—” she began.
He shook his head, slammed his fist against the stone where moments before he’d clasped her hand, and stormed away, leaving Rhaenyra to wonder what in the Seven Hells she’d gotten herself into.