Disclaimer: I do not own Aemond Targaryen or any of the other characters created by George R. R. Martin. Neither do I have any claim over his work in Fire and Blood or the adaptation created by HBO. I do not earn any profit from this.

Author's Note: Yes, yes, I know—I owe you the last frigging chapter of Promises Kept, which is five measly pages away from being finished. What can I say? Sometimes a hot bad boy just blows in on top of a giant dragon and you need to pour all those sticky feelings out.

The original character is definitely Rhaenyra and Harwin Strong's child. I know canonically Rhaenyra has three boys with Harwin, but I'm adding a girl in the mix for fan purposes. I started writing an Aegon x Jace one, too, but this got finished first.

This is set when Viserys is still king and when it's still possible to avert the Dance.


Lolys almost stumbles into her room, her eyes wide with fright and her voice frantic.

"Princess, it's—"

"Leave us."

The clipped tone seems to strangle whatever words Lolys might have said. They were ultimately unnecessary, as Alys Velaryon had already known who her visitor was as soon as she'd heard his voice. He steps into her room, silver hair aglow like a moonbeam, the shadows on his face bringing forth the sharpness of his cheeks and the curve of his full mouth. After more than two months of silence, it's hard to look him straight in the eye.

Alys nods at her terrified maid, who cowers for a moment too long. Aemond Targaryen turns his face towards her and she seems to remember her feet, scampering out and pulling the heavy door to the anteroom closed.

"It's late," she points out, standing and setting down her hairbrush. She stands still, knowing that any attempt to reach for her robes will only make him sneer. It is enough that she still has her underclothes, though the silk suddenly feels painfully thin.

Aemond doesn't answer. She keeps her eyes on his feet as he approaches. He has a peculiar way of walking: short, decisive strides, every footstep a point to be made. Odd, how a quirk she'd found so amusing in him when they'd been children seems so menacing now.

He stops when there's barely an inch between them, when she can feel the heat radiating off his body and smell the bitter tang of salt, sulphur, and dragon. She can feel the weight of his cold blue eye on her face and tries to will her cheeks not to burn. She can no longer remember how she'd looked him squarely in the face before, when they had been children. He hadn't seemed quite so dazzling then. Indeed, he hadn't seemed quite so dazzling a few moons ago, at that disastrous dinner following Luke's confirmation as heir to Driftmark.

"What?" Aemond's voice is soft, but it seems to rumble through her. "No welcome, my love?"

"Stop it," Alys snaps, against her better judgment. She's had weeks to think on this moment, but she hadn't exactly planned for him simply marching into her bedroom unannounced one evening. "How did you even get inside?"

"Why, they let me in." He's surely sneering at her now, his words rolling with contempt. She doesn't need to look at his face to know it. "Dragonstone has been the seat of House Targaryen for centuries, what fool would deny me entrance?"

"This is my mother's castle."

"And your mother is with my mother. She had no complaints."

That makes her look at him. Before she can speak he presses his mouth to hers, his hand sliding beneath her jaw to lift her chin. Alys' mind sputters to a halt and she forgets what she means to say. He tastes like spice and wine and she knows that if she lets him continue that nothing further will be said until he gets what he wants.

She shoves at his chest with all her might. It makes him step back and lift his head, but he merely hisses an annoyed breath out and reaches for her again. Alys turns her back to him, knowing that running would prove pointless. She'd tried before and it had only amused him.

His hand slides over her belly and she can't help how her breath catches, how her stomach seems to swoop down and the pressure begins to build between her legs. It's indecent, how long his fingers are, how hot the palm of his hand is even through the fabric. She lifts her eyes to give his reflection her best estimate of a glare.

"Why is the Queen here?" she asks, folding her arms over her chest. She sees his eye dip to her covered breasts and feels his breathing change. When he pulls her back against him, she's not surprised by how rigid he is. She presses her arms down harder when his hand begins to slide up.

Aemond's reply is buried against the curve of her neck. "To discuss a betrothal."


She's known it for months—or at least it's been staring at her in the face for months.

Hadn't she seen it in King's Landing, those few days they'd spent fighting for Luke's claim? She'd seen the Queen and her mother, hadn't she? In the godswood they both frequented so often, despite neither worshipping the old gods.

She'd heard at various times over the years how Queen Alicent and her mother had once been the closest of companions. She'd always dismissed it as fancy: the mirthless Queen with her furrowed brows and perpetually pursed lips—friends with her irreverent, gay mother?

But Alys had seen them speaking quietly beneath the swaying red branches of the godswood, and she'd seen the truth: how Queen Alicent's face had softened and she'd lowered her eyes, how her mother had reached for her hands and gripped tight. How could she ever have doubted the tales when her mother had even named her Alys? She'd turned away, feeling like an interloper, and had consigned herself to wondering about what was happening.

And then Aemond had come to her room that night, and perhaps it was then that she'd known.


Even so, her knees still go weak. Aemond feels the shift; his arm tightens around her and he nips at her throat.

"Do you mean to faint?"

That he seems vaguely offended almost makes her laugh. Instead, she asks, "Is this what you want?"


She hadn't understood, at first, why he'd come to see her that night. If she hadn't been so surprised, she'd have screamed for her brothers. Instead she'd stood there and let him appraise her, let him tell her about her many unacceptable qualities and how her family was a disgrace. After six long years apart, she hadn't prepared herself for the sting of his open scorn, hollow though it rang in her ears. She'd walked towards him not really knowing what she'd meant to do until she'd reached up with both hands to pull his face to hers.

For one agonizing moment, she'd thought she'd misread him. They had parted under terrible circumstances, and even before then the reluctant affinity they had between them had already fractured. The first time he'd kissed her, she'd been too surprised to kiss him back. Granted, she'd only been ten, and at thirteen he couldn't have known much better than her, but gaping at him like a fish and then running off had set him as firmly against her as might have been possible. And then any hopes of reconciliation had been burned to dust when Aemond had lost his eye.

But then Aemond's arms had come around her and she'd felt a rush in her veins that could only have been triumph.


Alys spins fast enough to catch his surcoat when he steps away, jaw tense and resentment smoking off him.

"I only want to make sure that you don't regret it," she says, her hands smoothing over his chest. Her toes curl when she feels his muscles jump beneath her touch. This, at least, he has never been able to truly hide from her. When Aemond keeps his face turned, she lays her cheek against his chest to listen to the heavy thudding of his heart. "I want to please you."

She only winces a little when he tugs her head back sharply. "No, you want to toy with me."

"Only a little," she admits, smiling when he finally looks at her, even though he is the one now in ill temper. She traces a finger over his lips. "Why didn't you send word?"

She had never noticed before how quickly fears can grow in silence. How sure she had been when she had been in his arms, how fierce in her conviction! Then she had stepped onto the ship for Dragonstone and the doubts had slithered into her mind, swallowing up her certainty in him with every day that had passed.

When Aemond presses his forehead against hers, she lets out a breath, and with it the hurt she's been growing for months. She has never been able to stay angry with him, despite her best efforts. When she'd heard about how he'd claimed Vhagar, the way he'd hit Rhaena and Baela and had heaped derision onto her brothers, she'd wept—though if anyone had asked, she would not have been able to say if it was for them or for him. She'd had six years to convince herself that she hated him, and yet the moment she had seen him training in the courtyard she'd felt her anger burn away.

"I had nothing to tell that you did not already know." His grip gentles and the pads of his fingers begin to rub at her scalp. "Until this morning, at least."

A shadow flickers over his face and the desire humming in Alys' veins gives way to cold dread.

"Is the King—"

"He lives." His look is distant, his tone removed. As though he were discussing a stranger rather than his own father. Aemond has always been his mother's creature, but Alys can see the pain and fear even if he will not own to it. "But the wedding will be soon, for his sake."

And ours.

Alys catches herself from saying it aloud, but Aemond knows her, too. He kisses her again and this time she lets him.


She had wondered about what it would be like to be with a man. Her mother had taken her aside not a year before to have a frank discussion with her about the act. Daemon had fended off the first suitor for her hand, but not before Clement Celtigar had managed a clumsy grab at her breasts and had tried to shove his tongue down her throat. She'd been hard-pressed to decide which was more revolting—what Clement had attempted or what her mother had imparted.

But as the days had passed and her body had continue to grow, her thoughts had strayed now and again to her faceless lover and what it might be like.

She had never imagined serious, stodgy Aemond Targaryen lowering his hard body to hers and fucking her with an eagerness that had eclipsed reason, that had put lie to the terrible things he had said to her that very hour. Nor had she imagined how easy it would be for her to surrender herself to his possession, how quickly she would spread her legs for him and welcome his invasion, though it spilled her blood onto the sheets.

"Do you want this?" he'd asked after kissing her breathless, after his hands had slid over the soft parts of her body, branding her.

"Yes," she'd whispered. Later, she'd screamed it.


Alys moans, every nerve in her body afire beneath the pull of Aemond's mouth and the broad sweeps of his tongue. She lifts her hips, her fingers clawing ineffectually at the sheets, pinned by Aemond's hands. With every flick and tug she feels herself being pulled towards the sharp, sweet crest of release and yet he never brings her over, content to let her float back from the edge before drawing her close again. When she bucks her hips again, he lifts his head and she almost wails with frustration.

"So impatient," he teases lazily, as though he hadn't torn the silk from her body and commanded her to lay back mere minutes before. He nips at her thigh, and though his face is stern she can see the amusement dancing in his eye.

"Please, my love," she says pleadingly, biting down on a smile when he stills. She lifts herself up on her elbows as best as she can. She knows what it does to her breasts when she does so. She can imagine how she looks—she can see it in the way Aemond's jaw clenches and his grip loosens. She lifts one hand and reaches for his face, pulling at the dark strap of leather that he has kept on. He lowers his gaze on his instinct—he always does when she takes away this last bit of armor. She sits up farther so that she can lean closer, close enough to brush her lips against his cheek. "I want you."

She lets herself fall back at his snarl.

"Wanton." He hisses the word against her cheek when she turns her face away and laughs, pushing hard against his chest to keep him at bay. The sapphire eye he has fashioned in place of his lost one seems to blaze down at her when she dares a glance at him.

Her fingers tug at his belt even as she evades another kiss. "You love it."

He does, even though he curses her and his hands become rough. Alys revels in his touch, in the unspoken demand that courses from his skin into hers. She drinks in his lean form as he bares himself to her at last, her own hands conveying her praise as she slides them over his smooth skin and the steely strength underneath. Those blue eyes—both true and false—are setting her aflame. She hooks her legs over his lean hips, wet and wanton and all of the filthy things he calls her.

She arches her back when he pushes inside her, mirth fading as the pleasure spears through her. The barest hint of pain keeps the feeling sharp and she finally lets him kiss her again, twining her arms around his neck and letting him push them both at his punishing pace. It feels like drowning and burning alive, letting this man consume her even as she takes her fill, accepting this man's power over her even as she binds him to her with her own.

They reach the peak together, Alys gripping Aemond close as he fills her with his seed. She had always imagined it would feel obscene, having a man do this with her. Instead she fills fat with content, every nerve in her body singing with delight as his full weight presses down on her. She kisses his face, slides her fingers through his hair. The sapphire glints at her in the faint light, fire seemingly spent. His other eye—the true one—is heavy with a feeling that stirs the embers of want in her belly.

When she rolls him onto his back, he finally smiles.


She hadn't thought about after. When she had awoken in the darkness, she had half-expected to be alone. But as she'd felt the heat of his breath on her shoulder and the heaviness of his arm over her waist, she'd felt a thrill that might well have been terror.


"You should go."

Alys hates to say it—mostly because she knows it will hurt him—but once the heat has faded to a comfortable warmth she can finally reach for good sense. When he does not answer, she lifts her head from his chest to see if he has fallen asleep.

Aemond takes the chance to trace his thumb over her swollen lips.

He still does not answer.

"If you were to be discovered—"

"In bed with my betrothed? What a scandal."

She loves the quirk of his mouth too much to be annoyed that he is mocking her. She rests her chin on his chest, leans into his hand when he begins carding those sinful fingers through her hair.

"It pleases me to hear you say it." She doesn't expect to sound so serious when she says it, but she finds that she does not regret the words once they leave her lips. " 'Betrothed,' I mean."

He lays his hand against her head. "Go to sleep."

She lets him press her back against his chest, obedient. It is easy to be obedient when he pleases her so much. Alys smiles and closes her eyes as delicious weariness sets in and she begins to dream of the nights to come, and of the days when she and Aemond can make plain to all what is between them.

"You don't think they'll change their minds, do you?"

Alys jolts out of the arms of sleep as the disturbing thought flits into her head. She pushes off Aemond's chest, glaring when he only sighs.

"Our mothers have changed their minds over matters of far greater import," she points out, panic shooing away the last threads of sleep as the idea sinks in.

"Yours has," Aemond says unhelpfully, though he finally deigns to open his eyes to look at her. "Mine is as constant as can be. Though I doubt even Rhaenyra Targaryen would dither about our marriage if she knew how often you've given yourself to me."

He laughs for the first time when she pounces on him, his hands catching at her hips.

"Why must you be so vicious?" she grouses.

He lifts her and sets her down right where they both want her to be, his teeth marking her throat.

"You love it."

She does.


Author's Note #2: So I saw a YouTube short of Aemond set to "Betty" by Yung Gravy, and well . . . he is so vicious. And so delicious.

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