Come Back To Me

Chapter 26

"You know at some point, I have to sleep, right?" Daena whined with her eyes closed and a small smile growing on her face as she felt Aemond's lip against her neck. The sun was beaming down on both of them from her balcony.

He smirked, rolling his eye to himself as he pressed his lips against her ear. "And just how do you expect me to let you when you refuse to put anything on?"

"Oh, as if you'd let me." She chuckled, but still leaned back into his touch. Her body was exhausted, covered in bruises and marks from him, but she didn't care. She loved every last imprint he left on her as he did with her.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

"Daena! Are you almost ready? The tourney is soon and mother doesn't want us to be late!" Luke's voice called out from the other side of the door. Her head snapped up with her eyes widened, she'd nearly forgotten about the outside world.

Aemond tensed up at the sound of his nephew's voice. What was once a tender moment shared between him and his long, lost love now was so rudely interrupted by one of the culprits behind keeping her from him. He growled into her ear, "Either you get rid of him or I will."

"Oh, hush." She swatted at his shoulder as she rose from the floor, wrapping the furs around her to cover up. She shuffled over to the door, cracking it slightly to see Luke tapping his foot impatiently. "I'll be there in a minute. I'm busy."

"Baela's been looking for you, sister. She wants to see you before the tourney, you know. She feels awful." His eyes softened as he felt his own guilt continuing to eat at him.

Aemond heard the whole thing and scoffed to himself quietly. Baela could apologize every day, on her knees with tears begging for forgiveness and he'd never even bat an eye at her. She'd robbed him of the most precious gem in the entire world. He didn't feel an ounce of pity for his cousin.

Daena hadn't spoken a word on the matter since their argument before their passionate affair. She didn't want a single moment spoiled between them. When the two weren't all over each other, he usually played with her curls while she read one of her books to him or he'd tell her stories of their childhood.

Truthful ones, ones she'd wanted to hear more than anything for the past 6 years. He told her about how the two of them used to read together almost every day in the Godswood, how no matter how many times she told the kitchens she hated carrots they always put them on her plate and he'd sneak them from her plate so she wouldn't get in trouble for not eating, or how she used to chase him around the training yards with a wooden sword she could barely lift.

There was one story she made him tell her over and over again, and he never denied her of it. It was of one where they both dreamed of dragons. The same dragons they'd both claimed over the years. She loved how he described Vermithor and Silverwing as fearsome and majestic. But he always used those two words every time, and every time she'd throw herself all over him. Something about the passion in his words to describe someone else's dragon just warmed her inside.

None of it came back to her, but all of it felt so familiar.

Being with Aemond felt natural to her, as if the two were designed specifically for each other and no one else. They were two pieces of the puzzle that put together a masterpiece.

The same eyes that once looked at him with so much hate and resentment, now only looked at him with desire and...

A small part of her did want to mend things with Baela, but this was a different type of betrayal. This one robbed her of so much more than she ever thought. Perhaps one day she'd forgive her cous-well, sister...but that day would not come any time soon.