Realm's Delight (A Rhaenyra Targaryen Villainess Fanfiction)

What are children but a weakness?

Author's Note:

I've received messages asking for an update on this story these past few days. Please know that the chapter will be posted once it is ready. Thank you for  your patience.

That said, here is chapter 5.

On the morning Rhaenyra was to be married, Daemon barged unannounced into her quarters. The attendants were about to show him out for the princess was still dressing but Rhaenyra asked them to leave instead.

Daemon approached Rhaenyra and held her by the arm.

"Have you developed a taste for prisons?" Daemon asked.

"Whatever do you mean?" Rhaenyra replied.

"This does not become you."

Understanding dawned upon Rhaenyra and she said, "Marriage is just a political arrangement, a wise person once said. It should not stop me from doing whatever or whoever I want." She smirked.

"Don't marry him." Daemon whispered.

The sudden tenderness and intimacy that fell upon the lips of the prince confused Rhaenyra. His words had a hint of pleading as well. But just as quickly as it was there, it disappeared.

"You had a week." Rhaenyra said, tightening her resolve. "You knew I was to be married, yet not once have you made your move."

"A week or a moment, what does it matter? Tell me you don't want this." Daemon whispered as he caressed her cheek and ran his thumb along her bottom lip.

At that moment, they were back again in Blackwater Bay on the day of Daemon's return. Their exchange was charged—heated even—yet none of them dared to make a move; always observing, like an eternal dance, what the other would.

But like embers, the more they are suppressed, the fierier they burn. In that instant, it was all they could do—burn. Lips met and all the noise of the castle were drowned out. As they drew breath together, their heads rest against each other.

Wait for me. Rhaenyra thought. Yet she breathed a different word entirely, "trust me." She could not bring to tell Prince Daemon what the future held.

Daemon untangled himself from Rhaenyra and left wordlessly. She no longer called out to him, lest she waver once more.

Rhaenyra and Laenor were married in all the splendor befitting an heir and her betrothed. Laenor was knighted before they wedded not only for being prince consort, but also in acknowledgment of his contributions in the war efforts at the stepstones.

They exchanged their vows before thousands of citizens in king's landing and many cheered when the high septon proclaimed them man and wife. What proceeded next was the feast.

No other man was as joyful as King Viserys on the day of Rhaenyra's wedding. He drained his cup with wine more frequently than any of the individuals on their table. He laughed boisterously and shared many a bawdy humor with the Seasnake, and sometimes with the new young groom.

Prince Daemon's seat at the feast remained empty, something which the king had come to notice later in his drunkenness.

On the topic of Daemon, King Viserys shared a rumor which he overheard from one of the servants. Apparently, according to the rumor, a sibling of one of the kitchen cooks saw prince daemon with a boy, no more than fifteen, seated on his lap while he was at a brothel.

Upon further inquiries, there were several variations to this gossip. One version said that the prince and the boy had been drinking together and, in their drunkenness, began kissing. Allegedly, it was prince daemon who instigated the act.