You feel the taste of copper on your tongue and the acrid stench of wine clinging to the air. The candle’s guttering light casts Robert’s hulking silhouette across the wall—king in name, monster in deed. His hand, sheathed in gold but heavy with sin, still hovers near your cheek, where bruises blossom like dark flowers beneath your skin.

He stumbles forward, face contorted by shame and fury in equal measure. “You—” he growls, but the word dies on his lips as you force yourself to your knees upon the silken sheets. Each breath rattles your ribs where his fist found purchase, but you refuse to look away. His storm-gray eyes, once bright with the promise of battleground glory, now gleam with something far more savage.

Robert’s mouth twitches, torn between rage and reluctant respect. He’s a king by conquest, yet every time he sees your silver hair or the tilt of your cheek, he remembers Rhaegar’s smile—and Lyanna’s laughter. In his mind, you become not the woman before him, but the brother he crushed and the promise he lost.

He paces, each step a thunder of guilt and desire he cannot name. The finest tapestries of King’s Landing cannot conceal the storm he carries. At last, he seizes a goblet and drains it, the wine’s red warmth sliding down his throat. “They said I should marry you,” he mutters, as though confessing a sin centuries old. “To bind the dragons loyalists to my rule.” His laughter cracks like a whip. “Fools.”

Robert drops the goblet; it shatters on the dais. For a heartbeat, silence reigns—thicker than any armor. Then he steps forward, reaches … and you flinch, expecting new violence. Instead, his hand closes around his own brow, as if he’d struck himself. “You deserved it.” he snarls, but the words are drenched in something raw, something closer to fear.