The pale, red stone of the Red Keep had grown familiar to Daenerys in the years since she had returned to Westeros. Targaryen banners and dragon skulls lined the throne room once more, and the livery of the soldiers and Gold Cloaks bore the three headed dragon of her house. The rebuilding had not been easy, and it had not been without pain. She had wept when the skull of her beloved Viserion, which had been boiled until the flesh had sloughed away from the black bones, had returned to the keep to join its brethren.

Men whispered that she had never wept for the women she had left widows, or the children who had died screaming beneath the breath of her sole remaining dragon. She had raved at such whispers, then she had despaired, and finally, with the help of her beloved, she had learned to move forward.

The worst of the ruin and destruction had been put right, and the debt to the lenders would be long in paying, but King's Landing and the realm had returned to a semblance of normalcy. Rebels had been dealt with, far less harshly than Daenerys might have secretly wished, but at the moment, at least, no tinderfires of revolt appeared to be sprouting.

The day had been a long one. Serious crimes required the royal imprimatur before an execution could be carried out; another suggestion she'd implemented against her own instincts, and for the sake of expediency such trials were generally lumped together. She'd also dealt with several thorny petitions from various lords, and lastly, a delegation from Qarth had arrived not only to congratulate her on seemingly righting the Westerosi ship, but also … she suspected … to determine whether there was any lingering enmity as to her time spent in the self-proclaimed greatest city that has ever been, or ever will be. She would admit that the notion of returning with Drogon to burn Qarth to the ground as vengeance for the wrongs done upon her and her people had been a thought that, in years past, had crossed her mind.

But she reminded herself, she had left such desires behind.

When she saw the people of Qarth, she felt an unfamiliar tremor within her. It took her a moment to recognize the sensation: regret. It was not until well into the revelries of dinner that she identified its source. For the first time, she regretted not giving Doreah and Xaro Xhoan Daxos a clean death. The realization shocked her to the core.

Maybe Jon was right about that, too.

In public, her husband was styled Aegon VI, but in her thoughts, and in private conversation, she and all who were close to him referred to him as Jon. Still a simple man in many respects, he preferred it.

The Qartheen delegation had lingered at dinner, and Daenerys briefly mentioned to Jon how amusing it would be to order the ladies of the court to mimic the female delegates' preferred mode of dress, namely exposing one breast to the world, but he had shot her an exasperated look and she'd promptly squashed the notion.

Two knights of the Kingsguard stalked behind them as they climbed the steps of the royal tower to their bedchamber. Ostensibly for security, a concept which had proven to be a rather morbid joke during the War of the Five Kings, but mostly for privacy, Jon had decreed that no one else reside in that particular spire of the Red Keep. When they reached the door, he reached out to push it open.

Daenerys realized her heart was pounding in her chest.

I'm a widow and very … very … far removed from being a maiden. It is ridiculous that I still flutter so at entering my bedroom with my husband.

Nevertheless, her hands trembled as Jon pushed the door open, thanked the Kingsguard for their service, and instructed them to retire to the base of the tower. She often wondered if they followed his instructions, but if they didn't, she certainly hoped that they knew how to keep their mouths shut.

They entered the bedchamber, which was warm and comfortingly large, but at Jon's insistence not extravagantly opulent, and Daenerys moved towards one of the large, thick wooden dressers set against the wall. While she did so, Jon barred the door, top and bottom, with thick oak braces.

No one is getting through that without a battering ram.

She removed the thin circlet from her head and placed it on a small wooden stand that rested next to an identical stand upon which the far more imperiously regal crown of Aegon the Conqueror sat. Jon had informed her that she could have or wear any crown she wanted, but he had come to the fullness of adulthood in war and would wear no jewelry upon his brow. Eventually she tired of being the only one bearing the weight of royal expectations and hired a goldsmith to create a far lighter circlet of white gold. Jon had smiled at her when he'd seen the newer, less ostentatious version, and she found herself wishing that she'd made the decision years earlier.

In truth, Jon had little interest in ruling. Well, that wasn't quite right … he had little interest in being a ruler, but great interest in helping the realm be ruled properly. He was quite content to let her issue every proclamation and announce every decision, so long as they were the right ones. In short, he was perfectly happy with her ruling the Seven Kingdoms, so long as he ruled her conscience … and ruled her. Her, most of all.

The lessons they had learned in life had been nothing but hard ones, and while he undoubtedly preferred that they fly away on Drogon and find a quiet life in a primitive corner of the world, he had overcome his distrust of Targaryens … including himself … and they had made King's Landing their home.

Daenerys briefly stared out the balcony at the city below. For years she had dreamed of the view, now it often left her sickened and ashamed. The worst of the damage had been rebuilt, but if you knew where to look, the scars of the war, of the battles, of the fire she had brought, were all plainly visible. She and her king would be rebuilding the Seven Kingdoms their entire lives.

She pulled the drape closed and turned to find Jon standing before her with a thick, close-fitting necklace in his hands.

No … truth. Always truth.

It wasn't a necklace, it was a collar made of segmented joints of Valyrian steel. The color was a lustrous, deep black with red highlights, and the width was perhaps an inch and a half. Wide enough to be noticeable, but not wide enough to be uncomfortable. It was one of a number of Valyrian steel trinkets Jon had sought out, mostly for her benefit … or her detriment, depending on your viewpoint. She'd eyed the collar's locking mechanism in a mirror carefully a few times, and, of course, she'd felt Jon manipulate its workings when it was around her neck, but she'd never learned the secret of how to unclasp it once fastened. Sometimes she wondered if she really wished to learn.

It was not every night that that he pulled the collar from its hiding place, but it happened often enough that it seldom came as a surprise. On days when she heard petitions or held court over a matter of life and death to her subjects, as she had that morning, she expected it to make an appearance.

Jon held the collar up and his eyes were questioning as he extended it towards her. Implacable, cold, grey eyes … at first glance Jon's eyes didn't appear to be Targaryen eyes at all. She knew better. She'd seen them catch fire and felt her very soul burn beneath their judging gaze.

She didn't hesitate as she held her hair away from her head and extended her neck. The collar locked tight around the pale skin of her throat with the barest metal snick and she was his to do with as he pleased. At least for that night. She could have said no, of course. Jon had never forced her, not even once, despite everything she had done. It was her choice.

The choice to make amends.

She would make amends, and she would do so by day seated upon the Iron Throne and wearing a crown, and by night behind a barred door with a collar locked snug and fast about her neck. She had to make things right, and this was the way, or at least it was the way she wanted. Or Jon wanted. Or they both wanted. Sometimes her thoughts on the matter were so jumbled that making sense of it was too exhausting. Mostly, when she was honest with herself, she just didn't care about the manner in which Jon and she found some measure of peace and, quite often, joy.

She had, from time to time, refused Jon's offer of the collar. Sometimes the reason was prosaic, such as a moonblood arriving at an odd time … on such occasions her beloved had recognized the truth of her protests and graciously waited until her indisposition had subsided. Other times the reason was simply pride, or anger, or willful stubbornness.

Her king had never raised a hand or attempted to cow her when she refused, he'd simply left her in their bedroom alone with her thoughts until the sun had risen and set on another day. Only once had she dared to turn away from the collar two evenings in a row, and Jon had never seemed so distant from her, so alien, so cold as he had the morning after her second straight refusal. She knew then that he had meant every word he had said to her years ago, shortly after they'd first stood amongst the ruins she'd made of King's Landing. Her choice was simple: she could have him and the collar, or she could spend her nights with only the ghosts of her past for company. Daenerys had never again refused for the sake of her vanity or wounded pride.

Above them, Drogon stirred on an eyrie they'd built for him out of a garret that previously had comprised the top of the royal tower and made his presence known via a faint roar. She wondered sometimes how linked she and Drogon were, and whether he felt what she felt. She doubted it, or on some nights he would have been uncontrollable.

She tilted her chin upwards and felt with her fingers the constricting metal locked tight around her neck. The first few times she'd worn it, the sensation had irritated her beyond all measure. She was the blood of the dragon, after all, and such as she had not been born to be locked in fetters. She was the breaker of chains, not the wearer of them. Of course, she'd earned other titles, as well. Stormborn, Queen of the Andals, and the First Men … and …

The Mad Queen

One of the first things Jon had done after she had ascended the throne was convince her, through every manner at his disposal, to not do as other tyrants might have done and issue a decree that derogatory names and jests at her expense would result in the loss of one's tongue. Instead, the complainants were brought before a servant of the crown to air their grievances and be heard. The suggestion would be calmly offered that the future of Westeros need not be a reflection of its past, and then depending on the harm they had suffered at the hands of the Crown … at her hands … they would be offered recompense. Not all, particularly those who still mourned their dead, cared to listen … but some did. Maybe even most. Most importantly, she and Jon were committed to their acts bearing out the truth of their words. King's Landing might have been taken with fire and blood, but it would not be ruled by them.

She lowered her hand from the collar and looked at him questioningly. "Everything?" she asked.

His answer as to which of her garments she was to remove was what she expected. "Everything."

It was the first word he'd uttered to her since they'd said their goodbyes to the Qarthian delegation after dinner.

He didn't sound angry, and she breathed a little easier.

Maybe he thinks I did well today.

Daenerys carefully unwound the plaits of her braid, then brushed the thick, gleaming strands until the hair flowed to the small of her back like a burnished, silver-gold waterfall. After she'd finished, she put down the hairbrush and reached for the lacing of her gown. She'd learned, after several misadventures, to request outfits that could be easily removed without handmaidens.

That was not the only adjustment to her lifestyle she'd been forced to make. The twice-a-month embarrassment of having a Volantene pleasure-slave she'd purchased, and then freed, shave the hair from every inch of skin below her waist was particularly irksome, but at least that particular idiosyncrasy could be giggled away as the exotic custom of a foreign-raised ruler. Jon had graciously offered to shave her body himself, with a Valyrian steel razor he'd acquired specifically for the task, but she'd pointed out how often he nicked his face and politely demurred. He had understood.

In contrast, if any of their servants had the slightest inkling of what happened behind the locked and barred door of the royal bedroom, rumors would have spread across the known world within a matter of weeks.

She peeked at Jon in the mirror as he removed his embroidered coat and simple shirt. The stubble on his face and his typical untamed dark hair gave his features a rugged, aggressive cast, and she had to actively resist the urge to go to him and embrace him. Gluttony and sloth might have brought low many a king, not the last of which would be Robert Baratheon, but Jon still trained with sword and shield more days each week than he did not. Muscles rippled in his arms and shoulders as he pulled a large chest from beneath the bed, lifted it, and then set it on a table in the corner of the room. Using a bronze key hung from a cord around his neck, he unlocked the chest, then propped open the lid. Daenerys bit her lower lip as the striations of Jon's abdomen flexed and twisted with the movement.

Jon caught her reflected gaze and a scowl darkened his features.

"Now," he snapped as though she were one of his recruits and he was still Lord Commander. There was no need to bother pretending it wasn't a command. They were alone, and she'd accepted the collar for the night.

She removed her rings and a thick necklace bearing gems of opal and ruby and set them in velvet lined boxes arranged near the stand upon which her crowns sat. That task finished, she removed her robe, her undergown of damask, and finally her smallclothes. Last of all, she peeled away the finely woven hose that hugged her legs. As she removed each item of clothing, she folded them neatly and set them on a table near the roaring hearth. Never in her life had she taken servants for granted, but she'd learned … or more accurately, been taught by Jon, that simple favors such as nobles leaving clothing in neat piles, as opposed to scattered about, would lead to appreciative talk of her benevolent grace and kindness.

Though the relatives of the people she'd roasted alive would likely remain unconvinced.

Jon continued with his own preparations as she undressed. He removed a circular, thick rug perhaps four feet in diameter and laid it on the polished red stone floor, just in front of the fire burning in their hearth. It was close enough to the flames that she would be kept warm, but not so close that Jon wouldn't have room to position himself in front of her. He then laid a much larger rug of identical material across the blankets of their bed, and finally he had knelt near each of the thick wooden legs of the bedframe and adjusted something with his hands. Though the angle of her view denied him a glimpse of his activities, she could guess what he was doing.

With quivering, nervous grace, and excepting the collar, as naked as she had been on her name-day, she walked to the hearth, stood upon the rug Jon had been kind enough to lay out for her, and knelt. When her knees were comfortably, but widely, spaced upon the fur, she interlaced her fingers behind her head, raised her elbows aloft, and calmly settled in to wait. The fire twisted and danced in front of her, her breasts, raised by the position of her arms, moved in and out with each breath, and the dew of her arousal began to sparkle within the shaven cleft of her sex.

Jon had never forced her to kneel in this manner on stone. Her king could be stern in dealing both pleasure and pain, but he had never been intentionally cruel. Never. She knew that he loved her far too much to intentionally cause her real pain. She returned that love, but she also knew that she could not make the same claim. The unending guilt she felt for the grief and anguish she'd caused him, and so many others, was part of the reason why she was willing to kneel now, clad only in whatever royal titles might cling to her nude body.

She did not shift her gaze from the fire as Jon, still bare-chested, stepped in front of her. The thick brass buckle of his belt was utilitarian and unadorned and his plain black trousers, while woven of fine cloth, had no decoration. He eschewed most of the heraldry of her house … of their house … but he scarcely needed it. The resolve in his voice, the steely gleam in his eye, and the curved scars upon his chest and back all bore witness to the fact that raw fire lived within him.

Maybe Jon is right, and that the song of ice and fire belongs to us both, but only fire comes easily to me. He is master of both ice and fire … and of me.

She desperately wanted to reach for him, to embrace him, to feel the bare skin of her chest against her own, but she knew better. Many lessons, applied over many nights, had taught her that pleasure would be faster in coming, and all the sweeter, if she obeyed the simple rules that he explained to her.

And one of the first, and perhaps most simple, of the rules she learned was that she was to kneel, in that spot and in that position, without speaking and without looking away from the hearth, until he told her otherwise. After that, unless there was an unusual need, the evenings generally followed an identical pattern: he would administer pain, then render her powerless, and finally she would experience pleasure. The authority she wielded over the lives of her people, he wielded over her.

Thus, she knelt silently and stared straight ahead … though she did avert her eyes slightly in order to catch a glimpse of the impressive sight, even partially concealed by the black wool of the trousers, of Jon's already erect manhood. She did not begrudge him his pleasure. In actuality, the sight excited her, as the growing wetness between her legs could clearly attest.

Jon dragged a footstool in front of her and sat upon it. Her knees had begun to ache, but it was a calming, almost satisfying pain. She shifted her weight back slightly onto her feet and more tightly laced her fingers together behind her head. A solitary bead of sweat dripped from her face to spatter upon a breast. A giggle almost escaped from her throat, but thanks to any gods who might have been listening, she caught it in time.

"Eyes on me," he said.

Daenerys kept her hands clasped behind her head, but in response to his granting of permission she gratefully tilted her gaze upwards until she met Jon's eyes. Her core melted as he looked down upon her, all benevolence and lust and subjugator and protector and steward and overlord all rolled into one man. She'd be long dead if not for him, sword driven through her by one of her own men, or captured to be the plaything of a lord unafraid of a riderless dragon, or by her own hand, perhaps.

Her lips parted and despite her best efforts a soft whimper emerged as Jon reached down between her legs and gently stroked the glistening petals of her sex. Her body had no secrets from him, not anymore. Truth, before all else, was what he demanded of her and expected from himself. Truth in all things.

Jon's hand softly, so as not to overexcite her, continued its ministrations as he spoke. "Those two men today, those poachers, you wanted to execute them, didn't you?" he asked.

Truth. Only truth … besides, he always knows when I lie. Always.

"Yes," she said in a soft, quavering voice. "But not because they were poachers, but because the forest warden who tried to stop them lost an arm to one of their arrows."

Jon's fingers quickened their pace between her legs, and it was all she could do to hold her pose against the rising pleasure.

"Without my suggesting anything, instead you allowed them the option to serve as men of the New Watch and see to the resettling of the Gift, and the restoration of the lands near the Wall."

To her surprise, Jon sounded genuinely surprised that she'd decided, without his input, to give the men the chance to serve in the successor of the no-longer-needed Night's Watch. The New Watch's main tasks at the moment consisted of the grim task of rebuilding what war had destroyed, but the poachers had leapt at the option to avoid death. It also helped that the New Watch, in an effort to encourage recruitment, was more liberal in some respects than the Night's Watch had been. It probably helped even more that winter was finally beginning to relent, and that the maesters predicted a summer that would last for at least a decade.

"I … thought it best," Daenerys said as she ached to close her legs and trap Jon's hand between them. "The warden will live and will receive a pension from the Crown for his leal service, and the poachers were not hardened criminals, merely young men who were desperate."

Jon withdrew his hand, much to her profound disappointment, and gestured towards her.

"Mercy," he said. "You gave them mercy." A smile broadened his face, and he reached down and gently traced his forefinger around one of her nipples. She did move then, only a shift of maybe a few inches, but it was enough for Jon to quickly withdraw his hand and gaze down at her with disappointment.

"I am sorry," she whispered breathlessly.

He chose to ignore the oversight. "You did well today. Not just with the poachers, but with the lords from the Riverlands petitioning to have what remains of the Lannister territory declared forfeit, and especially with that irritating banker from Braavos. I'm amazed you have not yet had Drogon set fire to his hat."

A laugh emerged from her throat, a single, melodic chortle, then she quickly squelched it. Jon raised an eyebrow at her but did not otherwise reply.

He definitely seems pleased. Maybe tonight we will forget about the punishment and the powerlessness and instead proceed straight to pleasure.

Unlikely. Her husband very much saw her as a work in progress, and nothing helped work progress efficiently more than disciplined and regular diligence.

He leaned forward, grasped her chin, and lowered his face to hers. Jon parted his mouth, and to her surprise kissed her, long and deep. She closed her eyes and, as much as she dared, leaned into the warm touch of his lips upon hers.

After forever, and only a few moments, he released her chin and sat back.

"Arms down," he said in a hoarse, throaty whisper. She dared another peek at his crotch as she gratefully unlaced her hands from behind her head and dropped them by her sides, then fought back a smirk at the sight of the massive bulge that had fully formed within his trousers.

"Hand, crop, or nothing?" he asked her.

The three options were proposed matter-of-factly, as though he was inquiring about the weather, but Daenerys knew better. If she deserved the crop, but chose wrongly, well … on such occasions typically she found herself for several days unable to sit her purple-bruised and sore bottom on the Iron Throne without the assistance of pillows. She had no idea where Jon had found the devilish implement, but regardless of how energetically he used it upon her, and no matter how adamantly convinced she was that she would wipe away tears and discover that her back and buttocks had been cut to ribbons, the crop never did more than sting and bruise.

Usually, she found it safest to ask for his hand. A good middle-ground, an acknowledgement that she was imperfect, but at the same time a request for mercy. Today, however, she was sure that she need ask for nothing in the way of punishment She could feel it in Jon's kiss, in the fact that his face, usually so drawn and inscrutable during her collared evenings, was open with the hope that she was finally better. That the Mad Queen was gone, would never return, and he could finally dispense with all of this and the two of them could simply be.

Yes, she was very, very sure that today, of all days, she could make the choice of 'nothing' and that Jon would embrace it.

"Hand," was her answer.

Only the barest widening of his eyes and a quick inhalation gave away his surprise. He didn't argue the point with her, even if it might have been the first time that she'd ever asked for more punishment than she had deserved.

"Up," he said.

She stood and paced to the next designated spot in front of the mirror. Jon enjoyed making her watch while he worked, and she enjoyed watching him work. He walked to the chest and retrieved a very long coiled silk rope that had been dyed a bright pink. She loathed pink, and when she had asked one time, on an exceedingly rare occasion when they were both deep in their cups, why he had chosen that particular color for this particular task, he had laughed and informed her that he had chosen it because she hated it.

Of course. I should have guessed.

Jon had acquired a book of a scandalous nature from some depraved Essos backwater and decided that the drawings and tales of blush-inducing scandal afforded him interesting educational opportunities. For example, one particular chapter on ropework and its usefulness in rendering a participant, such as herself, compliantly helpless, had caught his attention. While his hands had been fumbling and uncertain at first, after long hours of practice his movements were now sure, steady, and astonishingly quick.

He drew her hands behind her back and then maneuvered them upwards towards her shoulder blades, not so far as to be painful, but far enough that the strain was felt. Using multiple loops so as to spread the bindings evenly and prevent the loss of circulation, he bound her wrists together, then looped the rope around her torso just above and below her breasts. Strands then snaked beneath her armpits, around the back of her neck below the collar, and as he continued to weave a latticework of tightening cross-hitches her upper arms were pulled tight against her torso and she found her hands firmly pinioned in the spot Jon had chosen. When he was finished, Jon neatly tied off the rope at a spot well out of reach of her stretching fingers and stepped away to eye the finished product.

Daenerys thought the end result looked beautiful. The bands cinched around her chest were tightened in such a manner that they framed and lifted her breasts, and despite the fact that her hands could only flutter uselessly high upon her back, it felt more as if she was being embraced than as if she was bound. At least, she felt that way until Jon reached out and roughly squeezed her erect nipples between thumbs and forefingers.

"Struggle."

She obliged him by raising on her tiptoes and trying her best to twist free of the tangle of ropes that entrapped her. When he was convinced of her helplessness, he finally released her nipples. She settled back down onto her heels and breathed a sigh of relief.

The ropes had not loosened in the slightest.

He marched her over to a table, clasped her restrained hands within a strong fist, and firmly pushed her forward until her chest lay upon the wood. The wax from the candles dripped onto the surface only a few inches from her head, and while Jon on occasion had used candles to torment her, she greatly preferred not to see her hair befouled with molten wax.

As if sensing her worry, he roughly shifted her a foot to the side.

"Stay here."

His voice had grown even more hoarse, and Daenerys began to wonder if the sight of her body in this particularly vulnerable position might be too much for even Jon's preternatural self-control. She hid a smile as she wiggled her hips. For a second, she thought she heard a faint, appreciative murmur in response.

When he returned, he placed a small wooden object, several inches long, oblong and tapered in shape, but with a wide, flat base on one end, on the table where she would have a clear view of it.

Oh, no.

Well, it was her own fault. She needn't have asked for his hand, but once she made a choice, her husband never allowed her to change her mind.

Jon grabbed the object and then used his other hand to press at the inside of her thighs. She knew the purpose of what he held quite well and obliged him by spreading her legs as far as her ungainly, bent-over position allowed. He rubbed the wooden shape along the inside of her lips, and only when the wood was fully coated in her own silky excitement, did he begin to slowly press it upon the rosebud of her anus.

As the insidious device began to slither home, she didn't bother trying to keep from groaning, both from the still-unexpected sensation of an invader in that most private of places and from the feeling of Jon's hands pressing in and around her hips. From past experience, she knew that it was paradoxically best if she bore down. She did so, and with a popping sensation the tight ring of tissue expanded to accept the intruder and then closed around the tapered base. Jon firmly patted the end of the plug, and she groaned once more at the strange sensations it provoked within regions of her body usually left unexplored.

The next few liberties he took with her body were more perfunctory and decidedly less exotic. Jon hauled her upright, then bound her hair at its base with a leather cord. She always found the resulting appearance, with her hair pulled straight back from her face, not particularly attractive, but Jon appreciated the effective handhold thus created.

He held a waxy-appearing ball before her mouth, and she obediently opened wide to accept it. The ball, as always, scraped against her front teeth before it settled home. The size of it would eventually cause her jaw to ache, but not intolerably. A wide, musty-smelling leather rectangle was then pressed firmly against her lips and a thin strap buckled tightly behind her neck. Her eyes bulged a little from the strain of the obstruction, and she moved her tongue around until it had found a comfortable resting spot. The buckling strap had the effect not only of jamming the frighteningly large gag further into her mouth, but also of making it difficult to move her lips. The best she could manage, with great effort, was a muted, strangled whine.

She'd realized quite early on that the main purpose of the gag was likely practical; Jon didn't want any prying ears overhearing her cries.

With the gag secured, Jon hoisted her aloft as though her weight was of no consequence, sat down on the bed, and then lowered her face across his lap so that her stomach lay between his knees. During the manuever, the plug jostled in a most peculiar fashion. As was Jon's custom, he had positioned the two of them so that she could see herself, and what he was doing to her, in the mirror.

"Are you ready?" he asked.

She considered the question rhetorical, but she grunted an affirmation anyway.

The sight of Jon's muscles bunched, sweat on his brow, and with a focused look of determination, was always an appealing one. Of course, again as always, she immediately became distracted by the burning, forceful smack of his open palm against one of the cheeks of her arse. The plug shifted in a manner that sent a frisson of forbidden pleasure throughout her nether regions and her entire body recoiled from a blow somewhat more forceful than was typical.

Ow! I think Jon is determined to teach me a lesson about asking for lessons!

She screamed, of course, or at least tried to, but the gag did its job and lowered the noise to little more than a muffled hum. Her hands clawed and strained against the ropes twined around her body as she struggled to move them lower and in position to block the next blow. She might as well have been trying to pick up an elephant for all the good her efforts did her. Her body twisted and her muscles bulged between the cords, but her arms remained affixed in exactly the same spot.

Jon grabbed the long column of her hair, ignored the thrashing of her feet, and resumed his work in earnest.

At some point, the pain of the discipline gave way not exactly to pleasure, but to something that was simultaneously both. With every strike of Jon's palm, the plug shifted inside her as though it was a living thing, and as the rosy glow began to spread from her rump towards her sex and then into her belly and thighs, the spreading tingling numbness became oddly comforting. By the end she had long ceased struggling and merely lay limp across Jon's lap, her head held aloft only by his grip on her hair. Whether she had been in that position for an hour, or only a few minutes, was a question beyond her. She scarcely noted when he lowered his hand, gently extracted the plug from the position in which it was firmly secured, and casually tossed it onto a nearby table.

Jon massaged the same skin his hand had just cruelly disciplined, which was a customary signal that the punishment phase of the evening was over, then he flipped her over, held her in his arms, and carried her back to the rug by the fireplace.

This is new.

Jon had always found creative ways to render her powerless. On many collared evenings, she found herself with her wrists and ankles roped together at the small of her back, usually accompanied by some demonic torment such as a tickling feather or a braided strap tying her hair to her toes. Other times she found herself tied to a bedpost, or with her arms chained to brackets Jon had conveniently driven into the stonework at various strategic spots. Never, however, had he returned her back to her customary starting position by the fireplace.

He pressed on her shoulders and she obediently settled once more to her knees, then he unbuckled her gag in such a haste that for a moment Daenerys feared he might tear her skin free as well. When he lowered and then kicked away his pants, she suddenly understood Jon's purpose. She had never seen his manhood so aroused, so angry. For the briefest of seconds, she considered teasing him for this breach of decorum, but as her arse was still stinging and raw from the beating it had just received, she decided to simply oblige his obvious desire.

Daenerys figured it was the least she could do.

She enveloped his manhood with her lips and ran her tongue around its head.

Jon softly whispered her name, a sound which rang happiness throughout every fiber of her body, then he reached down and gently grasped her hair. Not for control, but simply to have more of his body touching hers. He allowed her to choose the pace at which she bobbed her lips up and down his shaft, and when she murmured and quickened her movements, she heard him gasp, felt him spasm, and then a familiar torrent of fiery liquid erupted into her mouth. Daenerys looked up into his eyes as she swallowed the stream, then playfully ran her tongue along the length of his shaft before leaning back and smiling at him. She had tasted men's seeds before Jon, of course, but she likened their flavor to that of what she might expect from fish or frog spawn. Her husband's essence, probably by virtue of his return from death by the magic that some men named R'hollor, was pure fire. The temperature of it, she suspected, might scald a woman in whom the blood of the dragon did not rage.

We were truly made for each other.

Jon seemed almost abashed at his lack of control as he helped her to her feet and moved her in front of the mirror again. Daenerys stared at her glazed, wild-looking, disheveled visage as Jon began untying the ropes wrapped around her body. Her sex throbbed at his touch, but his hands never moved downward. She fervently hoped that Jon would, in short order, return the favor she had just done him.

But she knew better than to ask.

When the ropes had been removed, they left behind a rather unusual and somewhat pretty impression of knots and strands upon her flesh. Not so pretty, however, was the red and sore appearance of her hindquarters when she twisted to take a quick peek. Tomorrow on the throne might be a bit uncomfortable, but she doubted it would be a pillow day.

Jon hugged her from behind and kissed her neck. Another unexpected turn of events. He almost never allowed gentle intimacy until they reached the third step of a collared evening: pleasure. She welcomed it, though, and leaned her head against his shoulder.

Almost as if her movement had snapped him from his reverie, he led her to the bed. She had seen his preparations earlier and needed no instructions as to what to do. She lay upon the thick rug he'd placed over the blankets, extended her arms far to each side, and then spread her legs as wide as they could reach. The air in the room wafted between her thighs and she longed to sneak a hand southward and stroke herself. Of all the things she might do, however, attempting to achieve pleasure on her own would be among the worst. Jon's rage on the few times she had given in to temptation had been fearsome to behold.

Jon, as if sensing her growing need, worked quickly. Buckling straps lined with some soft material, likely velvet, quickly captured her wrists and ankles. She again wondered just where he continuously procured such devices from. Ropes that had already been set by each leg of the bed were fixed through loops on the manacles, and then all four restraints were pulled and affixed beneath her view. The taut ropes held her legs wide apart and stretched her arms towards the edge of the bed. She tested the ropes, she was the blood of the dragon after all and it would not do to refrain from struggling at least a little, but no limb had more than a few inches of movement in any direction.

The ropes were evidently still too loose for Jon's liking, as he proceeded to move from bedpost to bedpost and reduced the slack in each one by one. When he was finished, Daenerys found herself pulled so tightly that she was unable to wriggle meaningfully in any direction. The slick wetness between her thighs was, she was sure, soaking the rug beneath her. She couldn't help but notice that Jon's excitement, fully visible now that he had removed his trousers, appeared to have already returned in full force.

He reached down and tickled her stomach to test the tightness of the restraints. She obliged his effort by bursting into pleading hysterics as she desperately, and futilely, tried to maneuver away. Of course, the bindings kept her helplessly spread. Satisfied, he ceased the tickling torment and wandered his fingers towards her breast.

Daenerys glanced down and watched the muscles of Jon's forearm rhythmically flex as his fingers sinuously caressed the underside of the sensitive skin. With his other hand, he traced a lazy pattern in the sweat accumulating in the hollow above her hips, and then moved his fingers downward. She half-closed her eyes and moaned as his fingers nudged at the edges of her sex.

Daenerys whimpered and her hips thrust forward as Jon delicately parted her cleft and teased at the hood of her most sensitive bud. As it emerged, her entire body began to rhythmically respond to his probing, and waves of pleasure cascaded over her. When Jon removed his hands from her body, she almost screamed in frustration.

Jon walked over to the chest, rummaged within until he found the item he was looking for, then walked back over to her.

Please don't let it be the feather.

She breathed a sigh of relief when her eyes confirmed that her royal husband had decided to forego that particular torment this evening. He held a black strip of leather in front of her face, and she raised and turned her head to allow him to firmly tighten and secure the blindfold. When he had finished, she lowered her head back to the bed and blinked a few times to test her sight. As expected, she saw nothing except blackness.

Jon's hand returned to her sex, and Daenerys quickly found herself coated in sweat as she writhed against the ropes holding her fast. He knew every inch of her body, they had no secrets after all. Beneath the blindfold, her eyes rolled back into her head as Jon teasingly, knowingly, played the sensitive spots of her body like a lyre, first lightly caressing one breast, then sucking upon a nipple, and all the while his hand roamed through her sodden wetness and kept her fire stoked at maximum intensity.

He knew when her begging was real, rather than impatience, and when her pleas for release had reached a feverish pitch, he lowered himself between her legs. Merely the feel of his breath upon her hips was almost enough to make her achieve release. Whimpers escaped her throat and she pulled helplessly against the ropes as Jon's tongues explored her inner folds until, at long last, he nimbly darted and rasped his tongue against the center of her pleasure while several of his fingers pressed deep within her.

The bliss that followed was overwhelming. Though she was ungagged, it made little difference as the scream caught in her throat as she convulsed and spasmed. Daenerys's back arched and she swore she could hear Drogon roar as a wave of pleasure crested and obliterated all conscious thought. By the time the wave had receded, and her thoughts had begun to return, Jon had already released her from the cuffs, removed the blindfold, and picked her up in his arms. She lay limp and nearly insensate in his grasp as he carried her nude, sweat-soaked body into a rather unusual room that, somewhat uniquely amongst all the exotic accoutrements in the royal tower, had actually been her idea. The mason and blacksmith had thought her daft when she had explained what she had wanted.

The stone room, little more than a closet really, had a foot-high divider of granite installed in the doorjamb, and the middle of the floor featured a small round hole. The floor gently sloped towards the hole, and from the ceiling protruded several closed pipes in which a number of very small, pinprick sized indentations had been drilled along the bottom and the sides . Not visible from within the air bath was the installation that had made the entire endeavor possible, an enormous copper tub of water stored near Drogon's perch, right beneath where he rested his extremely hot scaled body, and next to where he would occasionally roast his food. Depending on how lazy her dragon might be on any given day, the air bath's temperature ranged from tepid to scaldingly hot. She'd had the idea after seeing people bathe beneath warm springs on Dragonstone.

The air bath, of course, had the added benefit of not requiring any assistance to use. After all, it would not do for servants to possibly catch a glimpse of the marks which so often decorated her body.

Jon, even though he still carried her in his arms, triggered a cunning mechanism set in the wall and water began to spray from the pipes above them. The copper tank typically had to be refilled every week, but as Daenerys bowed her head beneath the warm water and laid her silken, white-gold hair against Jon's chest, she felt that royal prerogative should give her the luxury of at least this one very lengthy session.

"Can you stand?" Jon asked her with a glint of humor in his eyes.

"I think my legs are working again," she replied.

No more ropes. No more punishment. No more lessons … at least for the night. It was just the two of them. He set her down, and she tilted her head back and let the water cascade down her skin. The collar was still locked about her neck, but it felt looser, more of an ornament than a symbol. Jon wrapped her close and then craned his neck down to kiss her. There were no rules against her embracing him now, and she did so fervently, hugging him so close that it was though she wanted to merge their bodies into one. As they pressed against each other beneath the warm streams, she couldn't help but notice that his manhood seemed to be continuously jutting awkwardly into her waist.

She slitted her eyes and smirked as she reached down and wrapped her fingers delicately around him. Jon shuddered slightly, whispered her name again, and he stroked the side of her jaw with his hand.

"Don't slip," she murmured as she doubtfully eyed the wet floor beneath their bare feet.

Needing no further invitation, Jon placed his hands beneath her still sore buttocks and raised her aloft. She spread her legs, welcomed him inside her, then threw back her head and moaned at the nearly-too-exquisite ecstasy. He pressed her against the warm stone of the wall, and they moved together as one. Time stood still, and then Jon's movements grew more determined until, with a final thrust, she felt the fire of his pleasure deep within.

He's changing me, little by little.

For most of her adult life she'd despaired of having children, but as she felt a heat glide within her depths, she let a sparkle of hope glimmer. Maybe it would happen, maybe not, but what was life without hope?

Jon, still inside her, reached down, hooked his thumb just so, and caressed her slightly in that spot, and she joined him in climax. As opposed to the raging, monstrous eruption she'd experienced earlier that evening, this second paroxysm of bliss had a lingering, almost achingly tender aspect to it. She wrapped her legs around his back, held his head in her hands, and pulled him down to kiss her.

They lingered in the air bath for a time, using pumice from Dragonstone and scented soap from Lys to clean their bodies, then they reluctantly turned off the water and dried themselves with plain woolen fabrics piled on a nearby cabinet. Jon meticulously stored everything he'd used that evening within the chest, taking care to first clean anything that needed cleaning, while she retrieved a plain silk robe and slid it on. After he'd locked and slid the chest beneath the bed, he approached her, and she held her hair up once again, this time so that he could unfasten the collar and tuck it back within its hiding place.

Its removal from her neck seemed to generate an immediate wave of exhaustion. She climbed into bed and yanked a blanket over her body. Jon, shirtless and clad only in knee length smallclothes, blew out the candles in the room, opened the curtains to allow the sunlight to wake them in the morning, then he joined her beneath the blanket. As he pulled her close and she rested the back of her head against his chest, Daenerys wondered, not for the first time, how nobles could tolerate loveless marriages in which they shared neither a hearth nor a bed.

"I love you, my queen," Jon whispered.

"I love you," she whispered back.

Truth in all respects was what they had vowed. As Jon's arms wrapped around her chest, she knew that it was only by the barest of threads that their fates had not been spun in a different direction. Years ago, Jon's hand had reached for her not with love, but with a dagger meant to end her life. He was convinced that she would be the ruin of Westeros, the Mad Queen who would prove the undoing of whatever remained of the Seven Kingdoms after the Night King's Wroth and the lunacy of the War of the Five Kings. He had turned away from his purpose at the last second, embraced her instead of murdering her, and they had tamed the worst impulses of each other.

Sleep came quickly to her that night. Daenerys dreamed, as she often did, of a quiet house with a red door, a place where she could be at peace, and where a lemon tree grew beneath her window. Now, though, when the dream came, Jon would be standing in the door. He would hold it open for her, beckon for her to step through, and she knew she would not be alone.