Desires Be Damned • Aemond Targaryen

Chapter Twenty-Five

Dyaena

A few hours earlier

"She means to usurp the throne from my mother."

A few heart-wrenchingly silent beats passed before Aemond turned away from her to set his goblet down on a table, his head bowed as he leaned on his clenched fists. Her own cup remained in her faintly trembling hand as she watched him, his unspoken confirmation making the red held within much more desirable while the edges of her vision grew dark. After taking a gulp to quench her dry throat, she turned away from the man she wanted so badly to trust, and her eyes landed on the closed doors of the terrace. Contempt crept its way over her like a thousand spiders as she recalled what he had done to her the previous night that made her cast aside sense and reason, a decision that she couldn't have possibly known would lead her straight into a pit of treacherous green vipers. How much of what she was made to believe was a ploy?

She should have known that their plots to smite her family wouldn't have ended with their intentions to grant Vaemond the Driftwood throne while disinheriting Luke, but she never would have thought them to be so bold as to outright usurp the throne. It would mean war the moment word reached Dragonstone. Why would they risk it? What could they possibly have up their sleeves that would be reason enough to convince them they would emerge victorious, that all this trouble would be worth it in the end?

Though there was a fire blazing in the hearth, a chill crawled up her spine.

Unless they have no intention to pay such a price at all, not when they have the daughter of the heir still within their walls, alone, and completely at their mercy. I am to be their most valuable bargaining chip. I am to be the reason my mother will be forced to bend the knee as a knife is held to my throat for the rest of my life.

No.

I refuse.

"If you plan to attempt an escape," Aemond at last spoke, his tone grave, "know that I will not hesitate to stop you."

Dyaena sneered as she took several paces to further put distance between them. "Is that a threat, my betrothed?" she said as she neared the hearth. "Does duty blind your remaining eye so completely that you cannot see how foolish your aid in this is? Of all people you helped to ascend the throne, it was an ill-suited, drunken cunt."

"I prefer to see it as loyalty to my family," Aemond retorted coldly. She heard his footfalls slowly stalk towards her, but she did not turn around to meet his eye. "Something, I'm afraid, I learned from my father as I witnessed time and time again him choosing his eldest daughter, protecting her, no matter her transgressions. Something you don't have the spine for as you constantly teeter between choosing your family and choosing me. You can't have both, Dyaena. It is time for you to decide where you stand. Support our cause, and we will wed, and afterwards we will live a happy life together. Rebel against my family's demands, and they will surely place you in a cell for the rest of your days, or until you see reason and comply. But whichever you choose, you will not be returning to Dragonstone."

Her heart turned leaden in her chest as it fiercely thumped against her ribs. The walls of his chambers felt as though they were closing in on her, suffocating her as the air turned scarce. Her hand fidgeted with her cup before she emptied its contents down her throat. "You are bold to assume I want anything to do with you now. I thought you were different from your family, but you are just as much a snake as the rest of them."

She did not comprehend his grip on her arms until after he abruptly turned her to face him, his eye widened and intensely boring into hers while his hands maintained their firm hold on her, keeping her in place, though unnecessarily so. Her entire body was paralyzed from shock as her ears were flooded with an intense drumming. "It is not as black and white as you are making it out to be. We are not living in a child's storybook. What I did, I did for your sake."