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Jail probably would have sucked more if Rhaenyra hadn't been high for the first hour of it, where she spent those initial 60 minutes having a lovely conversation with a nice old woman with buttons for a mouth. Later, she did eventually realize she was talking to the toilet. It had been a profound conversation where Rhaenyra had discovered the meaning of life and written it down on her hand with the pen from her pocket that she swiped post-frisk.

Once the cops saw her, they yelled at her for having it, and asking where it came from. Rhaenyra only stared at them with a glazed-over expression, as if someone were giving her a presentation just in front of her face.

When they talked, their voice came out in iridescent color. From then on, she spent some portions of the trip clutching the toilet by the time the jailer banged his hands against the bars. "She's annoying. Get her out of here."

Rhaenyra fell back, watching the fluorescent lights dance over the bars and through her fingertips as she held up her hand. She was missing a shoe, and when she rolled over to find it, she was in a loop, unable to stop rolling until she hit the opposite wall with another laugh. Her back hit her own bed where her jean jacket fell atop her head.

"Jesus," a familiar voice grumbled, and the jail doors opened. She was in the dark now, and the darkness was a living creature, crawling towards her and through her. "You didn't think to call a doctor?"

She saw eyes in the dark, and they were deep indigo. Hands dragged her up and the light returned until she was staring straight into those eyes, his smell so delectably vibrant that she was certain she could see the individual shades of the scents. Cool citrus was yellow, the pine-like musk was orange, and the warm and honeyed amber was a soft red. She leaned closer, just to feel it in her, to touch the colors. Her head nearly bashed into his and would have if his palm didn't all but slap against her forehead, halting her descent.

"Daemon, she's not OD'ing. We had her under observation for an hour. Your niece is just dumb," the cop stated, and they were certainly words that Rhaenyra would remember in four hours.

She felt his hands on her, and they left searing imprints against her shoulders as he lifted her to her feet. She could see the steam rise from her skin, and she laughed, feeling hopeless. Daemon breathed out through his nose and pulled out a stack of cash from his pocket. She watched the noted bills with apt interest as he tossed it at the cop. The older gentleman caught it with a chuckle as if it was not the first time this had occurred.

"Wait," Rhaenyra said, looking around the jail for her shoe, her asymmetrical stance was made more apparent with her lack of heel. She forgot the word for it, so she just pointed to her heel that lacked its pair.

Daemon followed her pointing with an expression that was half amused and half irritated. "That's gone for good, idiot. Let's go." He gripped her sternly, unyielding as he forced her to leave behind her shoe.

She would not let that happen, so she tore out of his grip to grab it, clutching it to her chest to walk over to the guard counting his stack. The old man had a stereotypical mustache, an older white gentleman, with a scar just under his ear and wrinkles so profound that Rhaenyra began to count them. She was told much later that she had done this aloud.

"What the hell are you doing?" The old cop asked, and she practically stabbed him with the heel until he took it.

"The magic only lasts until midnight. Alas, I turn back into a maid," Rhaenyra said, and the cop stared at her with an incredulous expression while holding her left Jimmy Choo.

"Alright, let's go Cinderella," Daemon said, grabbing her arm to walk her out of the precinct. He had already turned to her, holding up a knitted beanie. His eyes weren't on her and he must have found something interesting behind her as he began to drag his fingers through her hair. The motion made her brows furrow as she leaned into his every touch, her fingers tingling as she traced up his shirt to feel the smooth cotton underneath. The sensations all melded together in a mixture of differing emotions that came overflowing. He let out a deep breath, and he quickly put her hair up in the beanie, hiding it.

Next, he put the sunglasses on her face, and the colors all muted, making her see through the hazy film of a black-and-white movie. She walked while putting her hand up, as if she could capture the filmy vision of the night as they exited the building. He held her to his side, his body close, as they walked down the stairs and allowed her to feel the cool breeze of the twilight.

She was put into a car the next moment, and every turn and bump of the ride made her entire body sway. She felt like she was on the world's best rollercoaster, swaying from side to side as a soft hand kept her from hitting her head against the window. The filmy movie was a dark one, with the inside offering little of her fluorescent lights that she could reach out to like a moth.

"When you come down," Daemon muttered with a groan as she fell into his arm, hitting her chin into his shoulder with a light laugh. He never once raised his voice, just guided her gently from the car, despite her laughing attempts to crawl out the other way, her ankle getting somehow tangled into the seat belt. When Daemon attempted to unravel it, he earned a kick to his gut with her free leg.

"I am so sorry," she said, leaning up to clutch onto him, rolling to reach him with her leg now looped inside the seatbelt. She clutched his shoulders, moving her palms down to feel for a bruise. Rhaenyra would remember each of these moments later with horrid embarrassment. "Don't hate me. I'm sorry," she said, and he just shook his head with a frown, untangling her leg.

"Just get out of the car, Rhaenyra," he ordered, and she obeyed, wondering when she lost her sunglasses and when the world lost the old movie feel that it had before. He eased her from the car, looking exhausted as he walked her back towards the tall structure that her high and acid-tripping mind chose to see as Aurora's tower.

She was barefoot, and her feet hit the pavement at a terrible angle that caused her to scrape her toe. The pain was so intense that it all but crippled her, but he grabbed her waist with a sigh. "Prince, I cannot go on," Rhaenyra said with a dramatic flourish as if she were giving a final monologue.

"I am not a prince," he muttered, and Rhaenyra giggled, as if the first bits of clarity were coming back to her.

"You most certainly are not," she said, pressing her pointer finger against his nose in so demeaning a manner that his nostrils flared. He lifted her bride-style, no longer asking permission. She let out a sound, a yelp, as she felt her head lose the ability of her neck muscles. She leaned back, letting it dangle as if she were this dead thing, as he carried her the remainder of the way.

In between the highs and the lows, there were bits of clarity where she remembered the golden elevator that she had once been so excited to ride or the lows that came with sudden anxiety that he was going to throw her off the roof. He nearly hit her hanging head on one of the sharper turns, and that was when he struggled to get her to stand on her own. His hand was on her waist, attempting to guide her reluctant legs into the right position so she could walk.

"Are you doing this on purpose?" Daemon asked, catching her as she fell backward, his hand now sliding to the base of her skull as he tried to get her up the stairs.

"I do hope there are no poor unfortunate orgies in here," Rhaenyra shouted as he grabbed her by the waist to practically drag her up the remaining for steps. He was a strong man, as she could feel from through his shirt when she ran her fingers down his abs, but she was determined. Her arms were flailing, trying to move in another direction than the one he led her to. "If so, I'd certainly get tested."

"I think I liked it better when you couldn't form sentences," he said, now letting her go so she could collapse on the ground in a heap of laughter. "Also, orgy? Please. It's proper etiquette to get tested prior. If you don't know that much, obviously Mr. Cole is keeping you busy with your vanilla sex life." He sneered at her, the first bits of true and dark anger in his eyes that she was too dizzy to deal with.

"Kiss my arse," she said, her eyes on her hands, watching the way the bones of her carpals moved with each twitch of her fingers. "Go away. Shoo. I'll take care of myself." She tried to make the 'shooing' motion, but ended up falling backward, her head slapping against the shag carpet of whatever room he had put her in. She attempted to sit back up, but her arms weren't working and she ended up looking like a turtle stuck on its back. "I'm not even high anymore." She managed to get up, sitting in the most painful ab crunch of her life.

She felt him lift her chin, the motion sudden and forcing her to stare directly into his dark eyes. He didn't look particularly angry, but she was counting his lashes, watching them grow before her eyes. Whenever he had grabbed it didn't matter as he raised a glass bottle of water to her lips. She attempted to slap it out of his hand, but he had seen that coming, using his knee as a rest for her back while he moved the bottle out of slapping distance above her head.

"I see you are not in an obedient mood," he said lowly, and she scowled, trying to not look too intently at how he held her or how he touched her cheek. His knuckles stroked the height of her cheekbone, and she could feel his family ring's cool metal inside her nerves.

Once distracted by his casual touch, he slipped the bottle to her lips and she drank until she could no longer keep her head up and it fell back. She heard his sigh, words she couldn't understand before he lifted her up again. Everything was spinning so fast that she nearly lost her balance despite not being the one walking. She was placed on soft cushions, where her head spun around and around again in slow circles that made the chandelier twist in on itself before her.

"Daemon," she said, staring up at the dancing lights, watching as lines of sunlight came up to waltz upon her outstretched fingers. On her hand was a small speck of black ink, moving along her wrist in loops. Her raven tattoo had come to life, and she watched the bits of sunlight creeping up through the blinds begin to light up the flapping wings. It flew off, scattered into the sunlight.

"Hmm?" Daemon whispered, and she hadn't even noticed him sitting near her head, his fingers dragging through her hair that was sprawled out near his thigh.

"My tattoo flew away," Rhaenyra told him, trying to look at him from her supine position on the couch. His fingers dusted along the wispy silver strands, but whatever his expression was, he made certain not to open to her. Something seemed to pass between them, with his languid touch and his eyes dangerously dark. Did he ever want her that way as well or was this all just a horrid game for him? He could be so brutal with her, but these last three years had been so damn long that it made her forget the tenderness.

"Do you want me to find it?" Daemon asked, his deep voice reaching somewhere deep in her consciousness that was floating and spinning away.

"No," Rhaenyra said, closing her eyes to block out the rising lights. "I want you to stay."

The silence grew, not unlike a child, as she closed her eyes. It clutched at her, fed off of her, and the world spun off its axis as a restless unconsciousness seemed to glide across the room from corner to corner. She was stuck to the sofa as if she were a magnet with its opposite charge, her entire body sinking further and further into the material. She didn't know when her blood began to grow heavy, but it now filled with enough iron that she'd need a powerful crane to lift her.

And in that paralyzed state, she felt his lips against her forehead, but there were no words that solidified him as real. She would never know how long he stayed or if the kiss was something her lonely brain had conjured into fruition just because she wanted it badly enough. It didn't matter, since she woke alone, some three hours later, feeling absolutely grotesque.

Her hair clung to her face from the sweat that had created a second layer upon her skin. She leaned over to twist with a groan as she stared at the empty room with glazed confusion. Her eyes swept from the great big desk, clean with everything in its meticulous place, to the towering bookcases with the books with leatherbound bindings on every row. She could feel each blink like a rusty window with her tired lids scraping against her cornea as she examined the room and attempted to remember anything past her need to pee.

She slowly stood from the brown leather couch that nearly refused to let her go as her bare feet slid against the red shaggy carpet. She slammed her foot against the middle table, the wood nearly bringing her back down as she let out a frustrated curse. She walked around the couch, towards the office desk as she attempted to drag a hand through her hair, only to see it had been placed in a braid that had mostly come undone in her sleep.

She walked around the desk, her fingers tracing the stacks of files as memory began to filter back in through the four brain cells she had operating this morning. "Oh my god," Rhaenyra said with slow realization as she dragged her palm over her face. She practically collapsed in his chair to slam her head into her arms that rested on his desk. The mortification was humbling, and she sat there for at least ten minutes, wondering if it would be easier to just drown herself.

She lifted her head from the desk, running a tongue against her dry lips and feeling like a baked egg. She ran her tongue over her teeth as her eyes swept over the surface of his desk in lethargic motions. She noticed the stacks of his papers, all aligned with precision as if he took a ruler to it, just to make certain that each item was five centimeters from another. She sniffed, her nose runny and her skin sensitive as she went to wipe it, all sense of care drained out of her as she reached over to the small box atop his desk where she remembered he kept his cigars. She opened it, finding them exactly as her memory visualized.

She reached for one, breaking it in half and putting it back. She reached for another, repeating that process and leaving one intact because she wasn't a monster. Rhaenyra yawned as she got to her feet, using the wooden surface as a cane while she attempted to open one of the drawers. She sat back down as she noted it was locked, she tried the others, all unyielding to each tug.

She sniffed again, her lips smacking together in a deadpan as she attempted to stand again. Her thighs were in shreds, which she would remember later came from her doing squats in the jail cell. The night was fantastic, so it was a shame that the morning had to come and remind her that her dad was going to absolutely murder her.

She walked towards the door to exit Daemon's study room, spotting the dark hallway that she followed with muscle memory. She didn't bother to do it quietly, yawning at least nine more times before she was facing the stairs. She wiped the sleep from her eyes, staring up at the wood panels with the living plants surrounding each side of the modern glass railings. The garden was certainly doing better than the one at her place back in Connecticut, so maybe she was the only one that couldn't keep anything alive.

"My greatest nemesis," she told the stairs, wincing as she climbed up one after another. She had to have done at least 200 squats for her to be in this much pain, officially making this the worst morning after a fun night out. She vaguely hoped that Mysaria was miserable.

Daemon's room was just below the roof, so that meant one more set of stairs before she could take out all her frustration on his bathroom. She felt like she was hiking in Yosemite's Half Dome by the time she made it up to the last step. She was sweating rum and precipitating the last effects of acid by the time she opened his door.

Of course, it was empty since her uncle had always been an early riser. While she had known where his room was, she had never been inside it. She spotted the soft grey bedsheets, folded so neatly that she wasn't sure if it was a mattress underneath or a slab of sharp marble.

She'd certainly snoop after taking a shower.

She continued, opening the bathroom and sliding her clothes off her skin as if she were peeling an avocado. She groaned, letting the dark black dress drop to the ground in a heap that would require sanitation by fire. The underwear came next before she attempted to use his complicated Japanese toilet that shot a jet of water up her asshole, making her feel as if she got hit with a jacuzzi jet.

It was kind of nice.

When she was done, she turned to the glass shower while removing her hair from her messy braid. It was a luxurious thing so clear that the glass was nearly invisible. She pictured opening the window and letting birds fly into it.

She attempted to slide it open, only for it to stay securely in place. Her nose wrinkled trying again before she went to the other side where it folded open without so much as a squeak. She immediately hated the very nature of the shower where Daemon likely took his random hookups.

She walked through it, all the while wondering why anyone would need a shower that fits the entirety of an NFL team. The inside, unfortunately, was to die for with rustic stones and flooring that looked like cobbles but felt like marble. Rhaenyra's fingers traced the faucet, attempting to work the complex contraption with growing anxiety as the front panel of the wall was covered in jet spouts that made it feel like she was in a luxury spa. She stood out of the way of them as she turned it on, expecting it to shoot straight forward. Instead, it came from above, boiling hot and pouring like hail.

She practically leaped to the other side, attempting to turn down the heat whilst avoiding the water. The waterfall and rain sort of shower slowly stopped sizzling, and she carefully walked under the pouring.

She probably didn't have a good reason to add her ignorance at operating his NASA contraption of a bathroom to her growing anger at her uncle. However, Rhaenyra added it to the increasing tally of offenses.

The warm waters slid down her skin like silk, and she immediately felt the grime and the tension begin to conjoin with the water down below. She stood there, letting it hit her, for long enough that her skin grew pruny before she finally reached for the black, sleek-looking bottle that looked more like quality alcohol than shampoo. Her eyes barely grazed the bottle of Oribe before she was already opening it.

She pressed it to her nose, inhaling it until she could feel it down to her lungs. Her head went nearly dizzy with the hint of citrus and edelweiss all blended together into a familiar aroma. She poured some into her hands, rubbing it into her damp hair as the smell surrounded her, and with it, came a longing so great that all the efforts she made these last three years went down the drain.

She pressed her back into the rock shower, a loud and frustrated groan blanketing her in as potent a way as it had years ago. When she had left his penthouse, she had nearly gotten hit by two separate cars since she had been openly crying while walking down Noho. If it wasn't for her foresight to put her hair up in her hat and the sunglasses, she was sure there would be many videos and images floating around of her meltdown.

Since then, she had graduated, and she should be in a happy relationship and starting her life. Instead, all it took was his shampoo to make her get so hot that she was practically dripping. Her eyes were heavy and lidded as she began to picture him before her. She could close her eyes and he was here, naked, and so close.

Her hands began to slip down, imagining his lips on her stomach, imagining him going farther than that, and when she pressed her fingers to-

She heard the door open to his bedroom. It should have been a way to stop her, but her hands and her touch-starved body had other plans. Her brows furrowed together as the pleasure built with every motion of her rotating fingers, growing in pressure as she slid down, letting the water wash down her body.

She watched his shampoo slide down her skin, leaving his scent behind. There was something erotic, something shameful, about doing this with only an unlocked door and his clear glass shower separating them. She was so tired of the shame, and every time she thought herself healed or over it, over him, it took such a small thing to push her back over the edge.

Her fingers slipped inside and her eyes rolled back. By now, there was a part of her hoping he'd enter with her lust-filled brain mostly foggy, and any sense was gone. She'd regret it after, she might even hate herself, but at least she'd get to feel him again. She wanted him so badly that everything was falling away, and her touch quickened, her eyes shutting.

She imagined him between her legs, she imagined him at her neck, his tongue grazing up until he reached her ear and he tugged it between his teeth. Her hands sliding down his back, her nails digging down until she cut skin.

Rhaenyra's breath staggered, her other hand slapping over her mouth to quiet herself as the water washed away the shame moments before she found more. She could still feel his mouth against hers, his kiss not only seared into her memory, but her skin and her nervous system. She had yet to find something as painfully beautiful as it had been. She wished it was something she could tell the world. She wished she could show the universe that this was how it should feel like when one finds someone so perfect that the world could burn down around her and she wouldn't care.

It had felt a bit like fear and lust and want and so obviously unrequited.

Rhaenyra hit her head against the rocks, her anger mixing with her lust in such a way that felt like rock bottom but she didn't care. She heard him from the other room, and it was enough to make her feel again. She whispered his name, not unlike a prayer, just before the pressure eased and the pleasure ignited.

She sat there, eyes closed, for so long that the water had already grown cold and the realization brought a sliver of self-hatred. She dropped her head to her knees and sat there, not minding the cold water that came down like rain. Eventually, she did angrily finish her shower, the tension and apprehension returning when she struggled for nearly five minutes to turn off the water and did end up spraying herself directly in the face.

Only once she was out and clutching one of Daemon's towels to her, which she did sniff because she was a hopeless pervert, did she realize she had nothing to wear. She pressed his towel to her face as she stomped her foot to the ground, attempting to get a grip. She never found it as she cracked open the door. She scanned the room, only to spot him across the room, currently on his second button of his top.

He stood in front of a full-length mirror, his hair styled and his back muscles visible through the white shirt. Her eyes scanned down his slim black slacks, his styled silver hair, and most his front exposed, and wondered where her pride ran off to.

"Hey, when you're done with your makeup, do you have any clothes?" Rhaenyra managed to get out, and his gaze fit onto hers from through the mirror. His jaw clenched, the indigo color of his eyes almost entirely turning black. "Or if you'd rather take me home in a towel, that's cool too. Sure your image couldn't get any more disreputable."

His brow arched, moving onto the next button and by now, she wondered if he was taking his time just to punish her. Only her head was exposed from through the door, as if she had any right to modesty after fucking herself in his shower. "It's nice to see you helping yourself to whatever you want. Shame you can't help yourself to a bit of gratitude."

Her nostrils flared, and she walked out of the bathroom with naught but a towel. His fingers paused, the slightest hesitation from one button to the next, before continuing without looking away from her. Somehow, he had gotten more handsome, and not just from three years ago, but even more handsome than yesterday. "Gratitude? My head is killing me. Did you let me hit every door on the way up or what?"

She spotted a dress lying on his bed, a gorgeous baby blue pencil-style dress that would make her look far more classy than she felt. Currently, she felt like the trashiest bitch in New York. Next to it was a cream cardigan that felt like cashmere when she grazed her fingers down the material. He even picked out some undergarments, and where ever he got them was of little concern to her.

"Honestly, I'm just relieved that it can still get sore considering how little it was used," Daemon said, and her jaw clenched, her canines actively digging into her tongue. Finally, she sneered, wanting to see him falter, wanting to see him flush.

She dropped the towel at her feet.

"I think I would have preferred waking up in jail, uncle," she told him, slipping on the panties first. She couldn't look at him, her bravery only going so far as she slipped on the bra next, a nude little number that fit her perfectly. And just that, she finally looked at him, but he was already adjusting his tie, gaze anywhere but on her.

He would have appeared put together, if not for the fumbling of his tie. She had watched him loop one with his eyes closed, but now, it appeared he forgot. She felt her lips twitch up as she dragged the baby blue dress over her body, letting it fit over her like a second layer of skin.

When she got it on, he was still fixing the silk tie.

It was odd, after all that time watching him through news articles, media exposure, and in the passing, she was finally in the same room as him. Alone in a room. Alone in his room. It was nearly enough to turn back the clock to a time she would have done and said anything for his approval. Even in the years without him, a part of her still sought it out. Even on her exit speech at Yale, she had gotten on the podium and all but said his name. It wasn't even written on her damn note cards.

She walked up to him, her bare feet padding against the hardwood floor. She didn't know what she was doing, but she hadn't been lying when she told Laena that she didn't hate him. How could she? Romantic feelings aside, he was family. That was the problem.

She was at his side, and gripped his tie, forcing him to turn to her, watching his eyes run up and down her as if he were memorizing her every detail. She let him, her eyes on the silk as she adjusted it. Part of the material was twisted over his collar, so she had to reach over to reshape it. Her arms nearly looked like the placement one would find in a dance as her fingertips grazed over his neck. She was close enough to see his shaking breath, his sharp jaw clenched, and his eyes heavy as he stared down at her. She refused to look, slowly dragging her fingers down the material of the black silk, adjusting it and making it a tad too tight.

She finally met his amused gaze with a slight lift of her lips, not at all innocent as she loosened it again. She almost immediately regretted meeting his gaze, as with it came all those feelings that she thought she had under control, that she thought she quelled. They had been on their last kindlings, but the moment he stared down at her, they reignited. They spread over her body like wildfire, until her clothes were entirely too hot.

She wet her lips, and his eyes followed the motion. She was reminded of the last time they kissed, where her heart had slid past her teeth, down into him, resting into the center of his chest. Rhaenyra's hand moved, pressing her palm against his ribcages, feeling the thumping pulse against her skin. She wondered if it was possible to reclaim it, perhaps if she took it back, she could give it to someone who wasn't born wicked. Someone who wasn't born related to her.

Her hand dragged up, tracing his tie as the silence stretched before them.

It wasn't awkward or uncomfortable, but it rather felt like she'd come home. When his head pressed against hers, and she heard him breathe out, she kept her eyes open, staring at him as she hadn't been able to do for three years. His face hadn't changed, as if he had been molded this way from clay. However, there was a slight difference in his hair, which he had cut a bit shorter. Before, she could grip it easily, but now, she'd have to grip it from the base.

And the moment she began to lose control could have started with that thought, with her hands sliding up his face, over his cheekbones, to his hair. At the first touch, she was brought back a great magnitude of memories, of his smile and his laugh and their little talks about life and family and love. She missed them so badly that she nearly felt them pulsating in her chest. Her back touched the mirror, his fingers digging into the material bunched at her waist.

"You shouldn't be looking at me like that," he whispered, his voice a low grumble as if he were begging her. She traced back down to his face, where she stroked her fingers up his chin, over his eyes just to feel his lashes. It had been a long and dry three years, where her life had muted without him. She found new ways to pass the time, learned how to do more on her own, and nothing had been miserable.

She bit her tongue, her brows furrowed together as the memory of the last time overcame her. When Mysaria had come down, it told her all she needed to know.

"I missed you," she admitted, just against his lips, his eyes staring down at her in so dark a way that were she a less person, or were she Rhaenyra from three years ago, she would have given in.

"You're the one who left," he told her, and then he pushed off the mirror, backing away. His hand ran down his face, showing her at least that he was not immune either. But she wasn't a child who could be satiated with only his lust. Lust wasn't sustainable. It was a fleeting and unreliable thing.

She didn't tell him that he was the one who pulled away, fuck, he told her to go. How long does forgiveness take?

More than three years.

─────‒~❉᯽❉~‒─────

Daemon had been kind enough to charge her phone, but not, however, kind enough to chuck it off the roof. When she opened it, she received a barrage of nearly 100 text messages, most having to do with the wedding, but it was hard to know what was what when she scrolled down her notification bar. She was searching for messages from her father, or worse, Alicent since she was far more unforgiving.

And after about ten minutes of her scrolling through her phone and biting onto her thumb, searching for news that she burned down a poor man's little cafe, he finally spoke up from across the room. "Oh, by the way, your father doesn't know about the cafe. Neither does the press." Her incisors clamped onto her thumb, nearly sinking straight through flesh.

Daemon continued to sign documents from his desk, which he flipped from one to the next. They hadn't spoken in nearly an hour, after she had almost begged him to fuck her against the mirror. Her attraction to him was as incalescent as a star, and not one that was likely to go away just because she didn't want it. Luckily for her self-esteem, she had resisted. However, her self-esteem was eternally against what her body wanted, which was for him to put pull her atop that desk and have his wicked way with her. Oh my god, chill, she thought to herself with a deep breath and a closing of her eyes.

"Why didn't you tell me that an hour ago?" Rhaenyra said, now taking her thumb from her mouth.

He glanced up at her, looking ever the dark prince she knew him to be. His eyes were narrowed, head tilted with just the barest hint of dark amusement. She had been waiting for him to finish so he could take her home, but now she was certain that he could have done so for at least forty minutes.

"Did you lose the ability to say 'thank you, uncle' in these last three years?" Daemon asked, and her lips pressed together with increasing chagrin that made her feel like an incipient bitch.

"And what exactly did you do that I should thank you for?" Rhaenyra scrolled through messages again, just so she wouldn't have to look at him and face her own indignant mood. "Dad would have paid my bail in a heartbeat. I am a Targaryen."

"Your father will never hear of it because of me," Daemon said, and she heard the sound of his scraping pen against the soft paper. "So perhaps a bit of respect is due."

"You know what," Rhaenyra said, standing up and walking to his desk, placing her hands on it, and leaning forward so she was staring straight into his eyes. "I think I'll just take an Uber."

Daemon had the nerve to ask for her gratitude when he never offered her not so much as an apology or an explanation for a thing he ever did. And even now, he didn't look like he was about to undergo a revelation on the cleavage he had done to her and their relationship. "An Uber? Rhaenyra, do you even know how to order one?"

His question brought out a spike of heat that worked like a catalyst to an enzyme and made her want to strangle him. "I am not ten years old, you twat. I actually do a lot of things on my own."

"And with your father's money. You must feel awfully independent," Daemon said, leaning back in his seat. She smiled at him, the kind bordering on a simper, and then she knocked off the pens and supplies straight onto the ground. Perhaps she wanted to see his anger, perhaps it would make her feel less crazy, but he only watched the motion of her arm with calming indifference. "Does that make you feel better?" He leaned forward in his desk, now interlocking his fingers in front of him, his elbows on the surface of the desk. "For all your 'grown-up' talk, you still lash out like a kid."

She nodded her head, and perhaps if she still had her earrings she'd be taking them off right now to jump him. Her tongue clicked, her fingers reaching up to her ears. "Where are my earrings?"

His brows arched, but his eyes went to the stack of junk she tossed on his rug. "I took them off. Currently, they are somewhere in your tantrum pile."

She scowled at him, bending down to find them, practically tossing aside his crap to look for them. She barely noticed her hands were shaking, her heart palpitations coming back when she heard him stand and walk around the desk to lean himself on the corner and watch her search.

"Why are you so stressed?" Daemon's question was met with another scowl in his direction. "You probably have millions of gold hoops."

"Those were a gift from my mum. Do understand gifts like that or did your mother hate you as much as I do?" Rhaenyra said through her teeth, not meaning it, but it was nice to make the boundaries come alive. She wanted to hurt him because that was all he did to her, but it seemed that she couldn't make herself believe such a lie, making it come out weak.

"According to Viserys, I was actually the favorite," Daemon said, crossing his arms in a casual stance that she was certain he was doing to provoke her. She pulled one hoop from the pile, now getting on her hands and knees to find the next one, checking if it slid under his giant desk with stupidly locked drawers.

"Where is the other one?" Rhaenyra asked, and finally met his gaze again.

"You only had the one," he said, taking his time to release the information. She was in between stabbing him with his fountain pen and just up and leaving as the news somehow crushed her.

"Ah," was all she said, now sitting back on her calves as a cloud of thick despondency settled over her as potently as her cardigan. She tried to shrug it off, but it wasn't clothing that you could remove with a flippant whim. He seemed at a loss for a second, just a moment, not knowing how to handle her sadness.

It was an ironic thing, considering he had never had such a problem before. When her mother died and she was determined to settle into numb silence, he was the only one who treated her like a person instead of this wild dog. He brought the sorrow to her, yes, but only because he always made her face it and ultimately work through it. Perhaps they were two different people and perhaps the time was a wench they couldn't dislodge.

Somehow, that made it worse.

"Come on, I'll take you home," he told her, and he offered his hand to her. She stared at it for a while, longer than she wanted to. In the past, she would have simply grabbed it, she would have pressed her lips on his wrist just to feel his pulse beneath her skin. Perhaps their relationship had always been so inappropriate behind closed doors and the few photos floating around the Internet of him laughing at her jokes at a football game. Or his gentle kissing of her head at her cousin's wedding. Or his warm embrace that some insensitive jackarse had taken at her mother's funeral.

She grabbed his hand, letting him drag her to her feet, not minding her disappointed silence.

"How did you know about the jail thing?" Rhaenyra asked from his passenger seat, after a long silence lingered between them with her looking out the window. He had to have arrived within the hour, which is actually faster than many news sources get word on a celebrity's arrest.

Daemon snorted, casually leaning back in his seat as his Tesla was put in auto drive. He was currently scrolling through his phone, not at all a safe role model for children. Rhaenyra almost laughed at the thought. "Are you going to tattle to your daddy that your uncle Daemon has cops in his pocket?" His eyes slid to hers in that slow perusal that activated her stupid labido. She clenched her hands into fists at his implication.

"I don't tell dad shit," Rhaenyra said with a scoff. Their relationship hadn't been great since her mother's death, and wouldn't be until he addressed it to her. Or perhaps never, Rhaenyra could never tell. At this point, she was taking larger strides with Alicent. "So that's how you manage to stay out of jail?"

"I certainly would never get caught standing in front of the fire I started," he said with a low chuckle at made her equal parts frustrated and equal parts turned on. "Seriously, Rhaenyra, why didn't you run?"

She felt her frown deepen as he pulled in front of her penthouse in a no-parking zone since Daemon Targaryen didn't give a fuck. She turned her head in his direction, lips pursed as she attempted to bring forth the foggiest part of the night. "I was high," she said, waving her hand, which he promptly caught in his own.

She felt her breath get caught in her throat, threatening suffocation as he brought it closer to him. His thumb dragged over her skin, over her rising pulse, and she was nearly close enough that part of her was atop the middle section of the car. His eyes were rather cat-like, lips raised in slight amusement as he turned her hand face up, his fingers grazing over the soft skin of her palm. His touch was lazy, but curious when she finally followed his gaze to her palm.

"What's this?" Daemon asked, referring to the ink on her skin, written in faded pen. She vaguely remembered hearing about the meaning of life from an old lady with a button mouth, and it had been so profoundly beautiful that she had to write it down. Of course, it was a talking toilet and she knew that now. When she explained this part of her jail experience, they both looked down at her hand that just said, 'egg'. His head pressed against hers as they laughed.

His laugh was beautiful, sending flutters over her skin, and she vaguely remembered her skin sizzling when she was high and he was touching her. Their faces were close, their noses brushing, and his fingers were making circles against her palm. Her other had was against his neck, barely noticeable by her that she had moved it and her thumb rubbed back and forth against his skin. Back and forth against his sharp jaw, and each time they both became all the more aware they were in a busy area of New York, and while the windows were nearly criminally tinted, someone could still peek their head down and gaze through the black. They could easily recognize her, a stupid girl and a stupider niece.

He had said not to look at him the way she did, but Daemon could do whatever he wanted apparently. His nose tapped hers once, twice, and on the third, his lips brushed her own. It was a slight touch, barely an inhale between one breath to the next. It didn't seem to matter and she felt it right down to her toes. Her hands tightened on his neck as if to both force him closer and push him away.

He pulled away, just slightly, and she didn't let him send her away. She separated the entire distance, letting her fingers drag down his skin, over his chin, a lasting touch before letting him go. "I guess I'll see you in another three years," she whispered, but it felt so loud in the car.

He leaned his head back against his seat, his gaze so intrusive. The silence was crowded with words that they hadn't said, and perhaps in the past she would try to reach through it, but she had learned her lesson the hard way. She had learned it when he'd just look away, acting as if there was nothing left to be said and she was just a stupid girl who loved a man who would rather go around and fuck everything but her. He let out a breath when she opened the door, but grabbed her arm before she could step out.

"I missed you too," he whispered, and the heart she had hardened around him softened.

But she left on her own, stepping out into the crowded street.

And the next day, a package was delivered to her front door and it was a small little box, which she knew was from him because she was a creepy stalker who could recognize his handwriting in the dark. She practically tore it open, revealing a gold earring.