The Sapphire Prince | Aemond Targaryen |

17.

Aemond kneeled in front of Verena while he horribly stitched up her bleeding wound as she sat in the armchair directly adjacent to the fireplace. She stared at him desperately wanting to comprehend what he meant by his words earlier.

Verena winced as he was placing the last stitches and tried to move her hand away from his hold. But Aemond secured his grip and lugged it back to him. "Your own stupidity put you in this position. Now stop moving." Why wouldn't he look at her?

"If I knew you were going to butcher me I would have called the maester instead." She watched in considerable irritation how he wrapped her wrist with a piece of clean cloth. Though when he was done all Aemond did was sigh and rub her wrist slightly with his thumb. Verena could feel the exhaustion and pent-up anger radiating off of him as he kneeled in front of her.

All Aemond wanted to do was go to bed, to obtain some relief from the dreadful day that had transpired. That's twice now he watched her practically die directly in front of him. Twice he was forced to go through that gruesome feeling of witnessing her depart from this chaotic world. Aemond sat down on the floor with his head hung between his legs. He had his legs up as he leaned into his knees with his arms balancing on them.

Verena detected what seemed like crushing defeat in front of her and clasped both his hands into hers while looking down at him. She didn't push nor desperately attempted to force him to reveal the truth. All Verena did was wait for him to find some comfort and speak first.

"Lady Baratheon has never been nor will she ever be my mistress," he revealed looking up at her. Verena suddenly rose and terribly shook her head in disbelief. She couldn't help but step away from him at the unexpected news. Aemond marked the painful look of what seemed like personal betrayal and forced himself up to face her.

"Do not lie to me." her voice was harsh.

Exactly what Aemond was afraid of. That Verena would never believe him but then again she possessed every right to act the way she did now. "It was Aegon."

Her confusion grew even increasingly evident. "What does Aegon have to do with this?"

"Do you truly believe me to be a hypocrite Verena? That after what happened between us on that beach I would then claim a mistress that very night?" he took a step near her, hell be damned of the dire consequences. Verena was going to know everything. "I care about nothing in this world as I do for you and Aegon knew that. He said he would hurt you if I didn't make everyone believe the Lady Baratheon was my mistress."

The unique thing Aemond experienced was the stinging sensation on his burning cheek when Verena slapped him. "Aegon? Fucking Aegon threatened to hurt me?" she screamed shrilly striking his chest with her arms in a wave of outrage. "And you stupidly fucking believed him?

How could she not feel angered in the moment? Verena couldn't believe that another lie forced them apart. She was outraged that Aemond didn't consider her for one second and decided to stupidly go along with the idiotic threat.

Aegon hurt Verena?

All she had to do was touch him softly, and he would melt in her palm.

"Do you have any idea how alone I felt Aemond?" Verena screamed still striking his chest, "Any idea how isolated I was?" she stepped away from him anxiously pacing in front of the bed unable to think properly.

"You left me alone!" she shouted at the top of her lungs with minor tears in her eyes. Verena couldn't suppress the hurt in her strangled voice.

"Verena-"

"And you believed him?" with each sentence she continued to elevate her voice at him. "You sincerely believed he would hurt me?"

He stayed silent, standing in front of her in complete shame. There was nothing he could say that would justify what he did even if it was to protect her. From frustration, Verena seized whatever was near her and flung it across the room. The glass item went straight past his head and shattered against the fireplace.