ＥＩＧＨＴＥＥＮ
𝒸𝓇𝒶𝒻𝓉𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝓃𝒶𝓇𝓇𝒶𝓉𝒾𝓋𝑒
╚══ ❀•°❀°•❀ ══╝
Laena Velaryon was the kindest cousin that anyone could ask for. But somehow, she always seemed to stick her nose into every bit of gossip and whisper of drama in New York. So Rhaenyra should not have been surprised that Laena was inside her penthouse the evening after her bar examination.
She hadn't been planning to take it so soon, planned to make certain she felt ready, or until she felt worthy. If she failed, there wouldn't be a soul in her family that did not know. Now, even after taking the test, she wondered if it would matter.
"Oh Rhaenyra," Laena said, her tone not exactly scolding but certainly not comforting.
"Who told you?" Rhaenyra asked, flinging her bag on her couch. She had spent two days cleaning her place after her tantrum. The breaking of everything had felt spectacular, freeing even, but the fifteen trash bags that she had to lug down two flights of stairs? That sucked so much that Rhaenyra decided to find less destructive ways to release her anger.
Speaking of, she thought, walking over to her desk where she lifted the dragon stress doll that she proceeded to squeeze.
"I text Liza here and there for recipe exchanges," Laena said, her shrug casual as she walked over to the couch and sat down. She had a Target bag where she proceeded to take out a bottle of Stella and another of dry wine.
Liza was the soon-to-be ex-wife of Brya's dad, but Rhaenyra hardly knew many of the details when it came to Baratheon gossip. She minded her own business, especially since the drama of her four immediate family members was exhausting enough. "What are you doing?" Rhaenyra asked, watching Laena take out two wine glasses from the bag. Then came the corkscrew, ever the girl's scout.
"You burned down a building, you've been distant and a bit of a downer, no offense, so I have been giving you space," Laena explained, pouring a tiny bit of wine into one cup. "Sweet or dry today?"
Rhaenyra only pointed to the bottle of Stella.
"So I haven't been that great a cousin or a friend. I'd like for you to sit down, stop waiting for me to attack you with my Target bag and talk to me," Laena ordered and Rhaenyra awkwardly sat down. She did not speak, even as she sank into the cushions, palms against the fabric, and watched the busy streets of New York in motion. She also did not grab the glass of wine Laena had poured her. She hadn't breathed much since the first article printed in the Times.
Targaryen Marries Rags to Riches
Her phone had lit up with four messages from Criston when the article had been released this morning, but, coward that she proved to be these days, she hadn't opened them. It staved off the article on her misdeeds, but she owned 8 more stories, or 8 more scandals, for the papers to forget it. The deal was a salve on an open wound that threatened the last foundations of her fucked up life. She did so little right lately, but law school hadn't just been her dream, but her mother's as well.
So now, watching Laena sit and wait as she crossed one leg over the other, Rhaenyra was at a loss for what to say. She grabbed her glass, the bubbles fixing at the top like a layer of sea foam. Rhaenyra watched them dissipate, fading back into the sloshing red before she finally let out a strangled laugh. "I'm so tired."
Laena waited, and the patience in her expression was the only thing that managed to pry the words from the iron lock over Rhaenyra's mouth. So often, Rhaenyra preferred suffering in silence, hating the entire idea of asking for help. She could be drowning, sinking to the bottom, and still try to slap away the hands attempting to reach for her. "Do you want to talk about it? Or would you rather yell at me?"
Rhaenyra finally looked up from the popping bubbles of her glass, her fingers digging into the translucent surface. Even with all the heightened emotions, the confusing tornado of guilt and longing, she still couldn't put a single one into words. Every time she opened up, to Alicent, to Daemon, to even her own father, it was like she was screaming into the wind. It would never answer her or hold her or even stick around.
"You know I'm not going anywhere, right?" Laena said carefully, her eyes narrow as she leaned forward. "I don't care if you burned down a historical building or a person, I'm here with you to bury that body. You know that right?"
Rhaenyra felt her bottom lip tremble, and she attempted to look away, to take a shaking breath and cast it aside. "Am I a bad person?" Often she awoke, feeling like the most unlovable, monstrous person to ever walk this earth. She often wondered why she couldn't seem to do anything right and why it was so easy for people to just betray her. "Am I the drama?" Rhaenyra groaned into her hands, attempting to both complain and find some manner of humor in the very real question.
If it had been just one great, catastrophic and incandescent destruction, Rhaenyra could have managed. Yet, lately, it had felt like smoldering decay, lingering more and more in these consecutive days. She was lost in this lethargic and remiss feeling that had her wandering in a winding trail that lead only to more heartbreak. She knew that Daemon was only a part of it all, but that part was so consuming that the more she had of him, the more she lost of herself. The truth was, she'd do whatever he asked, give up whatever he asked, whatever it was, and they both knew it. If he asked her to cut her own wrist, she wasn't certain she'd have the strength to say no. She was her own shadow, both dark and lonely, and searching for love in all the people who would see her starved of it.
"You know I love you, but I have literally no idea what is going on, so if you have anything to tell me, I'm listening," Laena said, now moving to sit next to her. Rhaenyra felt the couch sink at the touch, felt the arm wrap around her shoulders in a half embrace. "You don't have to tell me, but I can't answer your questions if I am this in the dark."
Rhaenyra let out a laugh through her own burning eyes. "I burned down a building because I was bored and angry and heartbroken and now dad is going to disinherit me. I'm going to get my application denied because my 'moral character' is low, and I'm fairly certain all I do is cling to people because I can't do anything on my own." The sentences flowed out like vomit, coating Rhaenyra's restless hands. Once they began, she could not stop, and each one came in growing succession. "I manipulate and I lie and I steal. I betrayed someone who loves me and I should feel guilty about it, but how can I truly gain repentance if I'd do it again just to protect myself?"
She could feel the backs of her eyes sting, tears finally slipping out like the wax on a candle. She had wasted so many tears alone, in her room, in her car, or on the streets of New York. She wasted even more on tears that she'd force back in, just so she didn't make a scene or be thought of as weak. She was exhausted from the number of times she'd stare up, whispering 'no, not now,' only to slap her cheeks and continue on. Most of the time she was crying on the wrong side, filling the bottomless well inside herself.
"And I should feel worse," Rhaenyra continued with a laugh. "I should feel awful about making my father worry, but I don't because he's finally looking at me. When I return this energy, these emotions that he's left me with, he acts like the victim while I am this petulant child. He acts like he has tried to steer me on the right path, but he's the one who tossed me out in the dark. I am so tired of begging people to love me."
She already wanted to cry for wanting to cry. This cycle was destroying her insides.
"And now, I don't know what to do. This family is hopeless and nobody talks about anything. We just bury it and seek other ways to slight one another, then that leads to new slights until nobody knows where the fuck any of these grievances come from. And crying does nothing. Begging people to listen does nothing and I know that but I do it anyway because I am weak and alone and," she paused, slapping away her own tears until her cheeks were red. "And I don't know what I am doing but I know that these tears do nothing but make me weaker."
Even now, she pictured her father as he once was, in Dragonstone, holding his venerable white head against her own, after she skinned her knee. She would watch his stoical heart break, helping her up after her clumsy climbing of the cliffs on the island. She hadn't been accounting for the torrent of water that crashed her against the rocks. She had nearly fallen in, nearly drowned, but her father shouting her name, wadding through water, had come back to her.
She hadn't been too scraped up, but the cuts had drunk in salt and sea like a thirsty vampire. Anyone who had walked by would hear the irrepressible sobbing and her father's soft coos, despite his own wet cheeks. Some could be accounted for the waters, but they remained, even when the ocean had dried upon his skin.
Now, it all felt like a different world and one that had shattered with New York.
Laena listened, her eyes glossy and her lips quivering as she held Rhaenyra closer. "Do you want to hear the soft love or the tough love, Rhaenyra?"
Rhaenyra laughed, the sound coming out choked and strained as she breathed in the amber scent of her cousin's silver curls. "Whichever is the most honest."
"Just now, what you told me, it's all told to the wrong person," Laena said, stroking her fingers through Rhaenyra's hair. "Your father is an idiot and he's stubborn and he didn't know how to talk to you when you were seven so it's not surprising he doesn't know how to now. You control the narrative and the more he learns of you from other sources, the less he really knows you. If you tell everything as you see it, the story cannot be bastardized by others for profit."
Rhaenyra lifted her head from Laena's shoulder, brows furrowed inward as her eyes ached from behind her very corneas. "He doesn't listen to me."
"Because you speak out of anger," Laena said, stroking the pads of her fingers over Rhaenyra's cheeks. "Our family is exactly as you said it. The Baratheons will not let this go, seeking any reason to cause strife in your house for the harm that has been done to them." Rhaenyra racked her fingers over her cheek and back up to wipe away tears. "But if you release your own story, your own recollection of what happened, then you can at least control the outcome. You cannot control what your father does or Alicent or anyone else in this awful world, but you can control how you react to it."
Rhaenyra had grown up thinking that romantic love was the height, the apex, of all emotion. She had dreamed of princes and knights of old, rescuing her and loving her as they would in a Disney movie. She never would have guessed that she'd fall not for the handsome prince who went to rescue a maiden in a tower, and instead the dragon himself. She never would have guessed the true pinnacle of emotion was exactly what was reflected back in Laena's eyes.
Romantic love might just set her on the cusp of condemning flames, but it just as easily sweltered her flesh as it did ignite her heart. There was a comfort in the warmth that Laena offered instead.
"And for the record, you are hardly the worst person in the world and even if you get your examination declined, you are more than just a license. It's not forever," Laena whispered, turning Rhaenyra's face toward her to wipe away stray tears. "You are not bad, Rhaenyra."
The silence stretched, thin like butter on bread. "You don't know that," Rhaenyra said, her body burning as though it were trying to digest its own grief. "You couldn't know that."
Laena pulled her arm away, placing her palm upon Rhaenyra's knee and her other fingers softly against her chin, tilting it to her. "Is there anything more you want to tell me?"
The probing, kind gaze had Rhaenyra trembling, looking away, studying the ceiling, toward the draped golden curtains. Her restless eyes continued to roam, continued to consider it, but her trembling hands were a giveaway to her own rising panic. "How do you get out of love with someone?" Rhaenyra paused, stumbling, stuttering, and uncertain. "How do you stop loving someone you know you should not? I don't know what to do."
"Rhaenyra, who is this about?" Laena asked in that gentle voice, absent of judgment, and it gave room for the words to slip away from her cousin.
"You truly haven't seen? Truly, have you not suspected?" Rhaenyra was begging, begging to not have to say it out loud, the fear now so powerful that it nearly subjugated her. She closed her eyes and leaned away from Laena's touch as she tilted her head up to face the boundless world above, covered with just eyelids constricting the darkness. She could ask for some small mercies, some hope for understanding, some fleeting light here in this space they filled with abundant, yet emotional reticence.
"Is this about Daemon?" Laena said into that sinking darkness, greeting the accompanying silence. Rhaenyra wanted to feel ashamed, summon up words that proved that she never meant to feel this way, that she hadn't planned it, and that she'd change it if she could.
"He doesn't feel the same way," Rhaenyra said, shaking her head and the motion caused her brain to rattle in her skull. "And I've tried, tried to move on, tried to not feel this way."
Laena leaned her back into the couch, her body limp, her gaze far away and distant. Rhaenyra mimicked the motion, joining her with her eyes soaked with tears. Her hands and legs were vibrating like the strings of a violin, the vibrant tremor causing a sheen of perspiration to cover her brow.
"What are you thinking?" Rhaenyra was too afraid to meet Laena's eyes, as if she might disappear into the space between the couch cushions, into thin air, just to get away. Laena opened her mouth, but then closed it so hard her teeth clicked against one another.
"That you have the worst taste in men," Laena said, her light, sonorous lamentations reaching Rhaenyra until they drummed over her veins in pulsing tremors. "How long?"
It was unreal. This was a secret that she hadn't truly admitted to even Daemon for all these years. She had no problem telling him of desire, but love had yet to leave her throat. Mysaria knew, but Rhaenyra hadn't said the words, merely agreed with the implications, merely spoke around them. "Who really knows? I've loved him all my life," Rhaenyra said, the words becoming easier, flowing out like a gradual symphony. It was as though her voice had been trapped in a little box, expanding and swelling and waiting for her to let air inside. "I loved how he listened to me and how he never spoke down to me. He always looked at me and not through me, never looking disinterested. When did those feelings turn this way? I don't have a day or a moment where I-" Rhaenyra broke off, her voice in strangled laughter. "Two years. Five. Twenty-four. I have never not loved him." Even when she hated him, she often prayed to feel nothing at all. Hate was as consuming as love, two sides of the same fucked up coin.
She lies back, deeper into the cushions, sinking and nursing her red cheeks, saying nothing for a moment longer. Her head was thick with emotions that refused to part or drift away, yet was not so thick that she cannot begin to be fearful of what Laena might say next. Laena gave nothing away, even as she grew more thoughtful in the coming moments. She just taps her fingers against her bare knees, the skirt rising higher from her thighs as she finally turns her head to meet Rhaenyra's skittish and uncertain expression.
"I want him, even if it's frightening or if I may not be adult enough for a relationship or if he doesn't love me the same way. I want him today, right now, tomorrow, and every day following," Rhaenyra cuts off, her throat raw with uncertainty, but Laena only waits. When Rhaenyra's silence grew, Laena smiles once, that comforting, 'go on' sort of expression that eased away the knots that had clung to the inside of Rhaenyra's throat. "And maybe I shouldn't trust him because he doesn't seem to trust me at all." Was it always this hard to get close to him?
Rhaenyra felt as if she should hate herself more, for this buried secret, this squalid reverence, and the craving that had her choking on the aftertaste of feelings she tried so long to bury. "He's married," Laena said, and it caused a teetering laugh to erupt from Rhaenyra's dry throat.
"I know," Rhaenyra said, turning the words over in the same manner she had to her glass of wine, circling her fingers over the rim, trailing over every sensation. "And he's callous. He's cruel. He can walk away just as easily one day and make me feel as though I'm the most important person in the world the next."
"Does he want you back?" Laena was asking more, but it was the unvoiced sort of question. It was one that she refused to put into words as a way to spare Rhaenyra from having to speak more than she was comfortable.
"Want isn't the problem," Rhaenyra divulged the words carefully, all but admitting it, admitting that these weren't just feelings and praying that Laena would understand without making her say it. Her voice is low, tremulous, and perhaps like the shadow of a shivering girl. Perhaps like that girl who attempted to climb the cliffs in Dragonstone, thinking she could ever make it past the thrashing waters.
"He's old," Laena said, her nose wrinkling and now they both laughed, as if age was the worst of his flaws or as if he wasn't the most handsome man Rhaenyra had ever seen. Age had never even crossed her nonsensical thoughts. "And mean. Rhaenyra, truly, the worst taste."
Rhaenyra was grinning now, tears slipping out as a sense of relief crashed against her in more violent a manner than even the ocean waves. Here they were, discussing her feelings for her uncle, and Laena was upset that her cousin's incestuous thoughts were about a man who was 'mean'.
"I know," Rhaenyra finally said, lips thinning. "And after, after we, after that. He didn't stay. He just left before I awoke, not a note, not even an imprint on the pillows. Nobody hurts me quite like him, but I can't stop wanting him." Laena's hand reached through the little open space between them, intertwining their fingers until they were clasping onto one another's hands. Her thumb stroked the pulse of Rhaenyra's wrist, little circles that calmed the fear. "He left me with a box of Planned B and nothing more."
Laena's touch froze. "What?"
Rhaenyra laughed, saying the words aloud had only solidified the hurt and anger she had the morning she held it in her hands. "I am so tired."
The space, the very air, was as thick as treacle when Laena reached for her phone. "I'm going to fucking murder him."
"What would that solve?" Rhaenyra said, bits of worry slipping in as she considered that perhaps Laena wasn't joking as she opened her phone and scrolled through contacts.
"He'll be dead. Murder is the solution," she replied, and Rhaenyra yanked the phone from Laena's hand when she clicked on the contact named 'Florist'.
"I don't know what you're planning, but I didn't tell you for your vengeance," Rhaenyra said, hanging up the call before it reached the second ring. "And who even is this?"
Laena's nostrils were blowing out smoke, and her eyes narrowed before she shut them closed like a rusty window. Rhaenyra watched her cousin grip her own knees before her eyes opened again. The expression was softer then, as though she had gathered up all the little pieces into a neat pile that hid away the will for murder. "Has he ever hurt you? Or hit you?"
"With everything but his fists," Rhaenyra admitted, shaking her head as she stared up at the ceiling again, willing back in the tears. "I know what it must sound like when I say that he's shown me other sides. He was there for me after my mum, he listened to me, and he cares about me. He gave me a place where I felt seen and that history doesn't go away just because he's been cruel. He's the only reason I didn't end up dead, high and in a ditch. I was on self-destruct, ready to burn out when he saw me and, and that doesn't just go away. We spent three years apart, but I still couldn't let go."
"You were concerned about not letting it get serious?" Laena said, shoulders slumping, likely contemplating every word where his name dropped in conversations. She was likely sifting through interactions where the pieces of a puzzle were all there, waiting for someone to put them together.
"Yeah, because I'm a stupid bitch with no impulse control," Rhaenyra said with a weak chuckle, staring at the light bleeding in through the crack in the curtains. "Do you find me repulsive?"
"The only thing I find repulsive is him," Laena said with a steady breath. "I think love isn't black and white and we can't choose where it goes or how it manifests. I think you can do better than a man who is both married and an asshole."
Rhaenyra finally took a long drink of her wine, not stopping until she reached the last bits of red, clinging to the sides of the glass. "Sometimes," she admitted, staring at the empty dregs. "It feels as though we are mirrors to each other, the same thoughts and fears reflecting back at one another."
"And I'm sure he suffers with the same lack of communication that ails his brother," Laena said, now drinking her own wine.
"Are we not just the most fucked up family?" Rhaenyra agreed, and they both took one look at each other before the laughter nearly buckled them. Their heads tapped against one another, a gentleness and silence illuminating the space between them as one hand slipped into the other, cuddled to each other as the droplets of wine clung to the glass.
"Thank you for telling me," Laena's said, kissing the crown of her cousin's head, the affection burning away the fear that had curdled in Rhaenyra's stomach since the beginning. One kiss at a time, one moment at a time, it unraveled.
─────•~❉᯽❉~•─────
Rhaenyra had opened up Criston's messages at the end of the day, deep into her second bottle of wine when she finally read his words. They were as she expected, despite the tiny sliver of hope that he might have just forgotten about the reporter who had been there since the beginning. He likely went through every last one of her actions, turning them over in his mind as he realized how intentional everything had been. Rhaenyra wasn't clumsy and she didn't drop anything, she threw them. He likely now saw the dropping of the ring, her casual gripping of his umbrella so he might have free hands, and he'd feel so used over how quickly his knee had lowered in that motion that perfectly suited her.
She just read his text messages, over and over, lingering on the words that were cruel and pointed and meant to hurt her because they were true. Love and hate, two sides of the same coin, directed back at her. She did not reply, seeing nothing she could say to better it. She could say 'sorry' as easily as 'I didn't know about the reporter' or 'I would never do that to you', but Rhaenyra saw no reason to cover one lie with another.
She had spent the rest of her day after Laena had left, chatting with lawyers who were sworn to confidentiality. She had thought the best course of action was to just admit her wrongdoings online, but then she went back over arson laws in New York and her selfishness and self-preservation could not withstand such jail time. Her lawyers agreed, one calling her initial plan as dumb as setting a building on fire in the first place.
'I want to control the narrative,' was also not a suitable defense in court.
So, instead, she was buried in legal fees that she was determined to pay on her own. She had gotten some manner of independence from her father in the days following the Sebastian incident where he cut her off and froze her credit cards. She went into modeling, and did commercials, and endorsements that earned her the money to afford her extravagant lifestyle.
Her father had called her fifteen times, but whatever he had to say, Rhaenyra wasn't ready to hear it. She had used every last bit of her mental power to talk to Laena, and after she left, Rhaenyra had melted into her own couch. Currently, what she was attempting to do is find the person who took that blurry photo of her outside the club. The evidence, her lawyers agreed, was circumstantial since there was no proof of arrest.
At the very least, her uncle had done something right and erased her from the system that day.
She was still scraping her pen across the page when Harwin Strong took a seat across from her at the table. Her lips twitched up, bits of life coming back into her face as she adjusted her bulky glasses atop her face. "That's a fair disguise," he told her with a smile as he leaned forward against the table. "I almost did not recognize you."
The little cafe was lit with twinkle lights, a small place that got few customers into the late evening. "What give me away?" Rhaenyra asked carefully, lips curled into a slight smile.
He grinned, the sort that hid nothing and exposed his own heart. Rhaenyra admired that ability, even if she did not have a bit of it on herself. She had spent so long hiding her heart, guarding it, that she could at times act as though she did not have one at all.
Harwin's smile widened, kicking his foot into her own, causing her legs to uncross as he disrupted her balance. "The shoes. Your clothes are all H&M, but those shoes are Saint Laurent." There was no logo on the brown, leather Pantaboots, and fingers drummed against the table twice in thought.
"How do you know designer?" Rhaenyra asked, scrutinizing his black attire, jeans and a corduroy jacket. He was well dressed, but where Rhaenyra and her uncle preferred swathing themselves in luxury, Harwin preferred a comfortable style.
"We were raised in the same world, heiress," Harwin reminded her with that mocking grin, all in good humor that Rhaenyra found comforting. "Not all of us like to lord our status though."
Rhaenyra let out a little sound from the back of her throat, surprised. "I do not lord my status."
Harwin took a sip of the latte he had gotten when he had walked in. Rhaenyra's own cappuccino remained untouched, the foam already settled into milk and sunken froth. "It's cute that you can pretend to be so humble," he told her, and her lips smacked together. "It adds an air of mystery to an otherwise spoiled girl."
"You can actually leave now," she told him with a cold tone of voice that had him lightly kicking her leg. She knew he was flirting, even if she thought him bad at it, and she was slowly discovering she hardly hated it.
"I see you want to turn your little princess nose up at me then, but however will you see what I brought you from all the way up there," he said in return, now dropping a flash drive on her stack of paperwork with a tiny pat of his fingers against her hand. "All there, just as I promised."
Rhaenyra sneered, but plugged it into her computer with a deep sigh of exasperation. "Was it where I thought it might be?"
"More or less. What's Mr. Hightower have against you anyway?" Harwin asked, watching her peruse through the images of her igniting the lighter outside the club, not not a single one of her actually setting an object aflame. There was, however, one of Mysaria making eye contact with the camera, and another of her approaching. The last photo in the listing was of the bricks on the wall.
She could have said something, Rhaenyra thought, nose wrinkling as she took in how Mysaria had ditched her that night as the sirens arose from the background. Perhaps she wasn't entirely awful, even if her motivations were likely corrupt. Perhaps Mysaria had spoken up, and as self-absorbed and high as Rhaenyra was, did not listen.
"Thank you for this," Rhaenyra said with a smile, not answering Harwin's question. "Truly, you might actually be too good a fish for even the sea."
"And yet you still won't date me," Harwin said with a joking grin that cause her smile to falter. "I might just be less willing to help you. Obviously I'm trying to use this to get close to you."
Her grin came right back, her amusement sweltering between them. "And not at all because you hope I might stay in power long enough to give your father more room for growth."
"A man can multitask," he joked right back, filling the air with an easy clarity that she could probably like him. Harwin was clever, handsome, and polite, and all of these were in a way that Criston was not. Criston Cole was perfect, yet partial to knowing it, partial to knowing that she did not live up to his standards. She was 'vulgar' or 'improper' and her humor was 'callous'. Harwin, in contrast, seemed to enjoy these aspects, even when she was using them against him. Rhaenyra leaned closer, grabbing Harwin's phone from the table where it faced up toward the ceiling.
"What's your passcode?" Rhaenyra asked, and Harwin took a sip from his latte before leaning his chin into his fist.
"111111," he answered and her eyes rolled back. "I have nothing to hide."
His profile picture was of him, his dad, and his brother Larys, all in front of their home back in New Jersey. He was younger here, with less facial hair and scraggly brown hair that caught bits of the sun that reflected back from the summer light. Larys had lost much movability in a car accident when he was a kid, and the rumors say that he'd never quite forgiven Lyonel or Harwin for the crash. Lyonel for driving, and Harwin for getting out unscathed. Rhaenyra could never tell what was truth and what was fiction in the world of entitled gossip, to which Mysaria had much of when Rhaenyra had asked about the Strongs.
"Are you looking to move on from Daemon or just satisfy an itch?" Mysaria had asked, earning Rhaenyra's faltering laugh from across the call. Rhaenyra thought of that again when she looked upon Harwin's smiling face, but immediately decided against it. She had used Criston initially for the same reason, and not only had it made her longing for another man worsen, but she walked out feeling both wicked and vile.
A child with an empty heart, Criston had written her.
A man who knew this and loved this child anyway, she wanted to write back, but she didn't. He had the right to be angry and she refused to insult him or mock him just because she was on the defensive.
Rhaenyra opened his phone, scrolling to his contacts and typing in her name and number. She then proceeded to take a photo of herself, bulky glasses, incognito disguise, and all.
"I'm not looking to date," she told him, tossing him his phone, and watching him catch it. He did so without question, and she was aptly aware of the placement of her feet, just near his own. Her fingers drummed against the table, the tip of her boot grazing along his trainers. Subtle and slight, little brushes of skin and his hand against her wrist as his thumb dragged up her pulse.
"Would it make me less of a gentleman if I said that doesn't bother me?" Harwin asked, and he asked it again when he walked her back to her front door, lingering just outside the New Haven entrance. Since she trashed her Penthouse, since she had brought Daemon back there, she couldn't cross the threshold without longing for every bit of him.
Now, Harwin leaned in, but he did not touch her skin, even when her lashes fluttered and her lips parted. She had dropped more than fifty signals, but it seemed his mirth and levity was the factor that kept him from kissing her, and not his lack of awareness. For once, she'd love to not have to make every first move, just to spice up her love life with some surprises.
"You look beautiful. I don't think I complimented you today," he said, despite her messy bun and beret, glasses that covered her entire face, and the lack of makeup that showed off the dark circles. She might have thought him mocking her, but there was sincerity in his expression that melted bits of her. Not her heart, which was ice cold, but it certainly melted the ice on her vagina that had previously left her without desire.
"I have some tequila and a show," she suggested, her fingers dusting along his wrist. He only leaned against her door, his amusement growing at her obvious flirtation. "An extra toothbrush."
"I have all of that in my condo," he said with a growing smile.
She didn't bother to hide the roll of her eyes, giving up on subtly. "In about," she looked at her Apple watch, "Ten minutes, there's going to be a very naked woman in my shower. You have all that in your condo?"
"Ah," Harwin said, and she fluttered her lashes again, the act of subtly returning.
"You've been throwing yourself at me for weeks," Rhaenyra said with a growing frown as she reached for her keys, twirling them around her pointer finger. "Now you choose to play coy? I'm starting to get turned off by all the mixed signals."
"I'm trying to be a gentleman," he said with a pause, long lashes sweeping with his every blink. A light must have gone off in that handsome head of his, for an easy smile spread over his face, transforming him from the gentleman to the gorgeous lover she wanted in her shower. "Are you still flirting or can I kiss you?"
She went to speak, but he had already leaned forward and captured her mouth with his. She was drawn into it with a breath and it was nice, easy even, not so unlike falling forward into the lips of a friend. His hand was so polite, on her waist even as he crushed her body to his and had her fumbling blindly with her keys to unlock the door.
It wasn't much like a romantic movie, where the action went as rightly planned, and instead it had her stumbling inside. He followed, a clumsy dance not so unlike the one they had at the wedding. Two feet, just shy of capturing the other in an awkward waltz that had her laughing from one kiss to the next. He didn't step on her toes, but they did break the Hobby Lobby vase when she went to toss her keys on the little table by the door.
They separated, watching it shatter with an easy laugh that had her practically wheezing before he kissed her again. "I told you this would be more fun," he whispered in between kisses as he eased her beige coat from her shoulders, practically stepping on it before she shouted curse words about his brute-like neanderthal feet ruining the Chanel. He only laughed and said, "In English please. I like to know the insults flung at me."
She hadn't even realized that she had switched to Valyrian until it was too late and she felt a little tinge of sadness before she swept it away with the next kiss. She practically ripped off his jacket, tossing it behind her with haphazard disregard. "Learn Valyrian," she told him, lips curling in amusement even as the longing grew like weeds in her belly.
"I am still learning Spanish," Harwin groaned, taking off his shirt with an chuckle. "Where's that shower?" He followed her throughout the loft, where he unzipped her Pantaboots and stared down at her leather boots that doubled as pants.
"There's no sexy way to take these off," she admitted, awkwardly shimmying out of them and nearly tripping over herself as she did. He steadied her, both of them laughing until their stomachs were in physical pain as she sat on the counter and allowed his help. They were already breathing hard by the time the leather slid off her smooth legs, making jokes and glimmering with bits of precipitation when her shirt came off next.
"That was a little sexy," he admitted with a chuckle, bracing his hands against both sides of her legs on the counter. He brushed his lips across her own, kissing down and sucking on her neck. She closed her eyes, attempting to lose herself in the sensations. She made all the sounds of a girl in pleasure, gasps that spurred him to unclasp her bra. "But this," he made a chief's kiss motion that was one part hilarious and two parts flattering. "Stunning," his voice grew darker, deep, and honey-laden as her breasts were exposed to him.
Harwin removed his shirt slowly, exposing the most glorious six-pack she had ever seen. Harwin Strong was a care bear. He was a care bear with the physique of a bodybuilder.
It would have been perfect if he hadn't caught her staring and said, "Do you like what you see?" She immediately subtracted fifty hotness points for the cringe line that dried up her vagina.
She wrinkled her nose.
"Did you just cringe at me?" Harwin asked, slapping his palm lightly against her naked thigh as he tugged her forward.
"I think we should cut the conversation a bit. Your dirty talk needs work," she said, feeling his hardness up against the material of her silk lingerie. She pressed her fingers against the bulge, feeling it grow with her touch.
He bent down, lips just against her ear, yet did not touch. She felt it like a hot stroke to her skin as he whispered, "You are certainly hurting all my masculine pride." He then bit down on her lobe and she released a groan, nimbly undoing his jeans. "Is the tequila really in the shower or was that just an incentive to get in my knickers?"
She let out a snorting laugh, leaning back to chortle like a literal pig. It was the most unattractive sound she had ever made, but it had him bringing her closer, dragging the hard length of him down her sensitive core.
They made to the shower, stumbling, laughing when the water came out scathingly hot. Even in the midst of all the haze, the feeling of him inside her, the water was still hotter than she was. She attempted to lose herself in it, attempted to keep her eyes on him as he took her against the wall.
The perfect man, Laena would say, did not exist.
When they were done, wet and exhausted, they stumbled back to her bed as she nearly slipped on the water puddle they made in their kissing and tangled limbs. He fucked her against the bedsheets, soaking them with their own wet hair as they laughed and stumbled into one another. They had shoved the sheets aside, onto the ground, tangled once more in laughter and sex.
And it was fun. Rhaenyra didn't even know sex could be like that, like two people dancing, or enjoying one another's company with the added benefit of an orgasm that had her slamming her head into the headboard. There were no complicated feelings or complex thoughts.
He even held her as she slept, awoke before her with his head in between her thighs sometimes into the early morning, laughing when she almost screamed.
By the time they were both up, drinking coffee that she brewed and chatting like friends, he brought up an imitation of her face. "You scared the fuck out of me!" Rhaenyra shouted right back, and he continued to drink his coffee with a snigger.
"I've never seen a woman scream when I was between her legs," he said with a snort, taking one of the blueberries that she had washed and put out for them.
She watched him with a slight smile, thinking about how much Laena would approve. There was no such thing as the perfect person, but the truth was, Rhaenyra didn't want perfect. She wanted to want Harwin more than she did.
She squeezed her nearly translucent robe tighter to her frame, glancing out the windows that were opaque with the morning frost. Harwin was currently tying up his boots while she went to say something more, interrupted by the doorbell. She clicked her tongue, scowling at him one last time before she padded across the room and got on the tips of her toes to look out her peephole to no avail since she was too short for modern architecture.
She opened it with a sigh and almost tried to slam it back closed on Daemon's face when his hand stopped the door with an amused smirk as his eyes skimmed down her half-dressed figure. She was shaking her head, all but telling him to leave when the light went out in his eyes. "Company?" Daemon asked, and he walked right past her, forcing the close proximity that had his familiar scent filling her nostrils as his shoulder brushed her own.
"Well," Harwin said, drinking his coffee as he casually belayed the last three of his buttons with a sheepish smile. "We are certainly not dressed for company."
Daemon was holding nothing but a briefcase, his eyes scanning the loft, the vase she and Harwin had knocked over that she had yet to clean. He must have swept it in a pile early into the morning, but gave up when he realized she didn't own a dustpan. She used to, but she had used it to kill a spider once and threw the entire thing away. She never stayed in the loft so it didn't seem prudent to have one. She had a Swiffer though. An unhelpful Swiffer.
"Certainly not," Daemon agreed, his deep voice without emotion as Rhaenyra closed the door behind her with an expression not unlike horror as she faced away from both men. "Does your father know about your guest?" Daemon said in Valyrian, and he could be a true dick when he wanted to be, which accounted for nearly every time he spoke. "Fraternizing in the company is frowned upon."
Rhaenyra thought death might be less awkward than Harwin Strong drinking his coffee casually at her table while her uncle prodded at her temperament. "Is it any more frowned upon than an uncle fraternizing with his niece? Remind me again," Rhaenyra said back, hating herself for stooping to his level.
Harwin cleared his throat, "It's been fun, but I think I'm gonna go before you two forget I'm here." He stood, finishing his coffee and walking up to Daemon with a smirk. "It's a pleasure to see you again, Mr. Targeryen." He raised his hand, and Rhaenyra watched Daemon only stare at Harwin's outstretched palm as if he were offering him a bag of shit instead of a handshake. Harwin let out an amused whistle. "You two are peas in a pod, but I think you'll warm up to me eventually. Rhaenyra certainly did."
Harwin's joke hit in poor taste as Rhaenyra felt her insides slowly shrivel and die as Harwin continued to ignore the dark mood rising over Daemon. Harwin proceeded to pat his hand against Daemon's shoulder in lieu of a handshake before he turned to walk toward Rhaenyra. Because his back was to her uncle, he did not see Daemon wipe off the area Harwin had touched as if there were a cloud of dust in the shape of a handprint.
Rhaenyra pointedly looked away from her uncle as Harwin took her hand and kissed her knuckles. "Gevie riñītsos," he told her, and she had to bite her lip with a smile at his attempt at clumsy High Valyrian that he must have Googled into the night.
His pronunciation was perfect, but she figured he meant to call her a 'beautiful girl' and not 'beautiful child'. "Gevie tala," she corrected, and he repeated it with a grin.
"A man can try," he said, and looked back over his shoulder when Daemon scoffed and walked to the table to set down the briefcase. "I feel like I just met your dad," he whispered to her and she let out a sound in between a laugh and a scoff.
"Don't mind his attitude. He's just cranky in the morning," Rhaenyra said louder, making certain Daemon could hear her. She decided to throw one last middle finger, kissing Harwin lightly on the lips with a girlish giggle just before he left.
It was fun while Harwin was in the room, since she hadn't realized he was a buffer between a niece and an uncle. After he left, Daemon only poured out the coffee that Harwin had made and began to brew a new batch, and loudly at that. Rhaenyra felt like death might really be less awkward as she hugged her robe closer to her body and walked back toward the kitchen island.
"You certainly look like you had fun," Daemon said with a chuckle that ran down her very spine. She had the inkling on what was obviously going on with him, and his jealousy was one hell of a roommate. He had never seemed concerned over Harwin in this manner at the wedding, so she didn't know how to approach it.
"Why are you here?" Rhaenyra asked after careful consideration on her words. She lifted one of the blueberries to her lips, feeling shy, feeling nervous, her belly in tangled knots. Daemon hadn't been back here since their first kiss on the cursed wall she still couldn't make eye contact with. This was partly due to it bringing back the emotions of that night he left her alone and proceeded to ignore her for four months. It was also due to the portrait she put up, nicknamed the 'healing painting', which actually haunted her dreams.
"I got an interesting call from Mysaria about some photos that came up in the Times," he said casually, as if he were not talking about something that would threaten to ruin her career before it began. Not to mention she could get 15 years in prison if proven guilty of malicious intent.
"And that is none of your business," she said, hating Mysaria a bit for roping her uncle into this when all Rhaenyra wanted was a bit of independence.
"Why didn't you tell me?" Daemon asked carefully, slowly scooping a bit of espresso grounds into the Eversys Enigma espresso machine that Laenor had gotten her last year for her birthday. She was still learning how to use it, but it seemed like Daemon had no problems as a miniature barista.
"Because you are not a prince, as you so kindly remind me on a daily. I don't need your help," she said, and he snorted in reply, as if he found her ridiculous. There was still some residual anger, coating him thick like molasses and she knew it would only make him vicious.
"You used to tell me everything," he reminded her, now turning back toward her. It was only the white marble island that separated them, but it felt like a real island. She was reminded, since her body wouldn't let her forget, of the sensation of his tongue against the length of her spine. She tossed it aside in exchange for her pride.
Mentally, because of him, she was in a gilded cage, trapped and hunted and abandoned when it suited him. She was locked inside, unable to fuck someone without imagining him, unable to so much as orgasm without thinking of the syllables of his name. She couldn't even love because of him.
"You used to be my uncle who I trusted," she said lowly, watching him lean closer into the kitchen table. "Who are you to me now?"
His eyes were narrow and dark as she dared him to deny it, dared him to deny what she was saying. "But you'll tell a stranger?"
So we were talking about Harwin, she thought with a single glance toward the painting on the wall before she dragged her fingers through her tangled hair. "Are you angry with me?" The timbre in her voice was a warning, not so unlike indignation.
Daemon's hands were braced against the marble, and she watched them for long moments, the strength of his grip that reminded her of the violence in his temper. "Did you enjoy it?"
She grabbed her cup, walking around the island to rinse it out in the sink, not answering him. She felt his hands cage her in, his lips against her ear. She shut her eyes for a brief moment, just basking in his proximity that had her seeing stars. He didn't touch her, even his body was a distance away, yet she could feel the polarity of him, drawing her in. "Stop it," she whispered, squeezing her hands against the mug as she nearly dropped it in the sink when he blew aside strands of hair from her ear.
"Why? You've been begging for me since the beginning," he whispered, cutting at her pride with slow and lazy words that were meant to be sharp. "A little girl who dragged at my heels, scrounging for my approval whenever her daddy was too mean."
"And what does that make you," she whispered right back, her voice as harsh as his. "A man with an empty heart," she continued, barely aware she repeated what Criston had said. "Who only covets or wants this pathetic little girl when she tries to cast you away. You're jealous and it's ugly."
He laughs against her ear, and the feeling of hot air had her battling emotions of desire that she felt ignite her up in the way the boiling water of the shower had the previous night. She had to hold her breath, her hands against the counter. "Jealous?" Daemon tested the word, but he was growing angrier. "Hardly. I've been there and done you. Sufficient yet to satisfy an urge, but mediocre at best." She didn't bother to hide the sting that froze her muscles, causing them to grow taut in their place. She hid them away the next moment.
She tossed the cup down in the sink, turning in his caged arms to stare up at him with narrowed eyes. "You don't get to be angry. You don't have the right to be so much as piqued from a single thing I do when you have done nothing but steal bits of my soul, my very life," she shoved her hands to his chest, but he did not budge as he stared down at her, his gaze dark with an unreadable expression that had her dripping with aggrieved lust. "I get to take it back."
She hated him. He, who could chase off any man without even trying. He didn't even need to be in the room to do it. He didn't even need to have met him and it wasn't fucking fair.
"He would bore you senseless," Daemon whispered against her lips, the High Valyrian swelling her mind like lithium. He was the capricious one, he was the cruel one, but when he was this close, he exerted his power over her without care.
"Stop," she whispered right back, barely realizing she had switched languages at his command. She had long since learned that feelings were nearly impossible to fight.
"You've been begging for my attention for years," he continued carefully, finally stroking up the length of her arm, closing in until his lips were up against her neck. "And it wasn't supposed to be mutual."
The momentum of his confession had her back hitting the counter, the marble pressing into a spine. She felt like a kite on a string, being dragged further out to sea.
"Whether I have the right or not to be jealous is irrelevant," he told her, now moving back, still careful to touch her only the bare minimum. "You say I stole your life from you?" His fingers slid up her cheek, and despite the fucked up nature of his words, they pulled at her, as if she were a decorative bow being tugged apart. Her lips opened and closed when his thumb smoothed over the bottom one. "You've had mine by the throat hold since I let you into it," his amorous whispers, all uttered against her lips, were drenched in desire.
His thumb made a slow, healing caress over her bottom lip. The haze in both of their eyes stagnant, constant, and it had her leaning into his touch. His fingers sunk into her skin as if she were as soft and malleable as clay. She could feel his slow descent up her arm, skimming the fabric of her silk robe to expose the gooseflesh from underneath.
"Do you want me to stop?" Daemon's question was answered with no resistance on her part. He had eaten away at it, and now it was decaying ruins at her feet. She let out a sound as she felt him against her stomach, and smelt the mixture of his sensual cologne and the aroma of the espresso to her right. "Tell me to stop."
"You're the devil," her voice was heavy with the imagination of his amatory words, influencing her and softening her and arousing her.
"Then tell me to stop," he repeated against her neck, chuckling into her skin.
What she felt for him was a grievous sin. "I should be with a gentleman. Harwin is a gentleman," she whispered in English and his lips slid over her neck, finally kissing it, but at her utterance of another man's name, he froze.
He forced their bodies closer, tongue at her pulse so he could feel it quicken. "I could be a gentleman," he said, his breath hot against her flesh. His words were melting her as if she were decadent chocolate, puddling in the warmth of his hands. She wanted him to whisper it into her naked skin, she wanted him so badly that it wasn't fair.
"Apologize like a gentleman," she whispered, her hands against his chest, making him stare down at her with heavy eyes, set upon her. She nearly thought he'd bring her the moon if she asked him to.
"For what?" Daemon asked with a sensual smile that brought back her ire.
"If you have to ask," she whispered, pushing him away. "Then perhaps I will tell you to stop," she switched to Valyrian to answer, backing him into the island just behind him. He only stared down at her, eyes distant and far away as he let out a tiny huff of air.
"Must we truly talk more on the unpleasant?" he asked her, tilting his head sideways as his eyes bored into her soul.
"That's not an apology," she replied, her voice softening as she reached forward to press her fingers against his cheek. He watched her hand as if she was moving to strike him. "I don't want a gentleman. I want you," she told him, admitting it, and watching his lips part. "No mask. Everyone, especially you, keep dealing me a hand of cards that are straight bullshit."
"You will have to be specific," Daemon said carefully, leaning back against the counter. He looked away, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "The amount of offenses is a long one. I'd like to know which order you'd like me to start in."
She looked over his shoulder, toward the painting she had placed on the wall. He followed her gaze and his face contorted into slight confusion at the grotesque oil painting. She watched that pass, fading into calm realization. "You can start there."
AUTHOR'S NOTE
Do I love Harwin? Yes. Do I love Daemyra more? Also yes.
So, when drafting this chapter, the hardest scenes were the ones between Laena and Rhaenyra, but it's also one of the most important ones for Rhaenyra's development in this book. As you can see, her feelings for Daemon have isolated her and distanced her from love interests like Criston as well her friends and family. I admit, I was adamant about it being Alicent who was the first one Rhaenyra told, but the closeness of their bond is still in the process of being mended. Besides, I have other things planned for that.
I'm so incredibly uncertain about this chapter that it's not even funny. Please be kind but honest. Yana is sensitive about this one!
What did you think? I've always said that we were robbed of the Laena/Rhaenyra friendship, so I mean to rectify that!
I know that my daemyra is all kinds of toxic, maybe even unlikable. I've been in more toxic relationships than I can count, so I think by now I know how to depict them pretty well.
Rhaenyra waiting for him to change his ways
Rhaenyra waiting for her prince
Rhaenyra trying to get over him 💩 ️
Rhaenyra asking for the bare minimum 😒💁