It had been Daenerys' idea that Jon should wed Lady Stark, and it had been her idea to watch the consummation. She had seen such things before. After all, she was a worldly woman.
"I'm no blushing maid," she told Tyrion, rolling her eyes. "The Dothraki make love under the stars in front of the entire khalasar."
Her own husband had taken her like that countless times, and she had watched dozens of others. She was not so easily scandalized — she was not the soft and virginial Lady Stark. Why Tyrion was objecting Daenerys didn't understand, for he was a reason the consummation had to be made public in the first place. Neither she nor the bickering Northern Lords wanted anymore political upheaval.
"Surely you needn't be there. Have I ever given you a reason to think me a liar? I give you my word that I will bed my wife," Jon had said a few days ago.
"I'm not doubting your honour," Dany protested. "Only doing my part to avoid any future political crisis."
In truth, Daenerys had doubted that Jon would deflower Lady Stark. "She is still my sister," he'd said when she first made the arrangements. "She's been through enough, she shouldn't have to marry… me."
"Do you think me a cruel woman, Jon? Surely you're the best thing for her…" up here… in this wasteland you call home, this place you chose over me.
"I don't think Sansa will see it that way," Jon said, sighing and turning to look out the window.
When the night of their wedding came, the bride and bridegroom were stripped nearly naked by eager hands and delivered to the Lord's chambers. Some comments had been made about the Queen following the newlyweds into their marriage bed.
"A baseborn bastard — Targaryen bastard — is no fit match for our rightful Queen," came a voice from behind her.
Daenerys only had to look behind her shoulder at the crowd for it to fall silent. The Northerns still feared her, and in this moment she was grateful for it.
The door was closed and Daenerys sat in the chair beside their bed.
When she finally fixes her gaze on the bed, Daenerys finds she cannot look away. Jon was nearly naked, but that was a sight she'd seen before and it held no interest to her now. It was the way Lady Stark nibbled at her lip as she met Jon's eyes that fascinated her. Daenerys had been right. She wants this, Dany thought. It didn't seem to matter that she was here, or that men and women shouted expletives outside their door. Sansa extended a hand and laid it on Jon's chest.
Not long ago, Jon had been Daenerys' lover. She had kissed him as his new bride did before her now. She had even flirted with the idea of keeping him around, of giving it all up for him. But that could never be. They had different fates. He was of the North, and she had to think of the devastated continent that separated them.
It didn't take long for Lady Stark's questioning kiss to be deepened by Jon.
Lady Stark wore a thin linen shift, and even that was ripped from the bedding ceremony.
Daenerys was always loathe to admit to the darkness inside her. Her fingers curled around the arm of the chair, her nails digging into the wood, as she attempted to pull She had hidden behind kindness and fine words, but she had wanted to see Lady Stark on her back. House Stark has sworn fealty but these Northmen were her peskiest bannermen, and Lady Stark was so decidedly indifferent to Daenerys. With the war over, it had been a long time since she'd seen blood and she wouldn't shy away from Lady Stark's maidenhead.
She can see that in Jon too. That hunger. The war changed both of them.
Before her, Jon rips open the front of Lady Stark's shift and leaves the girl naked except for silk stockings that reach her thighs. There are tiny little direwolves embroidered into them, and that detail is so quaint Dany has to suppress a smile.
Dany had seen Jon's hunger for his new bride at their wedding, and even with Jon's back to her there was no mistaking the twitch of his back muscles as he struggled to contain his baser instincts.
Lady Stark was hungry too.
Her nipples were already hard. She couldn't hide from them. Not when she was like this.
By now it seemed that Jon had all but forgotten that his ex lover's eyes are upon them, but Lady Stark finally looks in Dany's direction. Even when Jon pushes her back onto the bed and drops to his knees, Sansa looks at Daenerys.
Not for the first time, Dany wonders what is going on in the younger girl's mind. Only months before she'd called the man pushing her legs apart her brother. And yet there is no hesitation in her face, not even when Jon lowers his head between her thighs.
Daenerys remembers what his tongue felt like and a shiver ran down her spine as she watched him do the same to his little sister.
But that wasn't quite right either.
This is different from Vaes Dothrak. She has never been effected quite like this before, and it wasn't Jon she was looking at.
Lady Stark holds her gaze and Daenerys finds she cannot look away.
Sansa Stark had regarded her only with contempt before, though it was cautiously hidden behind a mask of courtesy. Dany knew enough by now to know just how very false it was.
"Jon," Lady Stark calls out, weaving her fingers through Jon's hair and pulling him closer. She falls back against down pillows and Dany has to bite her lip at the sight of her full breasts quivering.
It's not jealousy. She could have Jon if she wanted him. She had already had him. What they had was more real than anything she'd known before, it wasn't something that just ended. In truth, Jon and Dany were creatures long dead. They were twisted in the same way now. Beyond the wall, past the curtain of light, where the land was so bitterly cold and terribly bright, they had changed. Their souls had been bound together somehow. Jon kisses his bride and it's almost like Dany is kissing her too. She doesn't want to love Lady Stark, but he does and it seemed she was trapped too.
Jon unlaces his breeches and Lady Stark wraps her legs around him and it's done — she can leave. She should leave if she knew what was good for her. Leave them to it. She loved both of them and it hurt like hell that Lady Stark couldn't seem to stand the sight of her. She hates herself for not caring. What happened to her spine?
It takes everything in Daenerys not to slip her hands between her legs and pleasure herself at the sight of them.
Later when she's alone, Daenerys' fingers curl inside herself and she imagines tying Lady Stark to her bed. Sansa could keep those silk stockings she had on, but Dany would bind her legs apart and finally the Lady of Winterfell would do as she was bid. Daenerys wanted so very much for her to yield.
When Daenerys closes her eyes and imagines it, it's her own name Sansa calls out.
Who was she kidding? It was never about politics.