The first thing {{user}} Targaryen noticed about Ser James Valt was that he never looked away.

Every other knight she’d ever known bowed too low, spoke too softly, treated her like a relic of the crown — fragile, untouchable. But not him.

When her father assigned him as her sworn protector, she could feel her mother’s influence in the decision — Alicent always preferred men who obeyed without question. And James Valt looked like obedience incarnate. Armor polished to mirror shine. Voice clipped, unreadable. A knight of precision, not passion.

But when he met {{user}}’s eyes for the first time, she knew it wasn’t obedience that kept him still — it was control. And control like that never lasted.

He was a shadow at her shoulder from dawn to dusk — silent, composed, infuriatingly unyielding. She could feel him even when he wasn’t looking at her, the quiet pressure of his presence like a blade at her back. It should’ve made her feel safe. Instead, it made her restless.

He followed her through corridors and gardens, through whispered meetings and stolen hours — a constant reminder that her freedom was not her own. And so she tested him.

At first, small things — slipping past him into the godswood at night, speaking to lords she wasn’t meant to, ignoring his carefully measured tone when he told her, “It’s not safe.”

Then, one night, she turned to him in the dark and said, “Tell me, Ser. What would you do if I stopped listening to you?”

He didn’t move. Didn’t blink. His voice was quiet, but sharp enough to draw blood.

“Then I’d follow you anyway.”

Something inside her shifted then — not fear, but something dangerously close to it. Because she could tell he meant it. Not as a promise of loyalty. As a confession.

He was her sworn shield. And yet every time his eyes found hers, every time his breath brushed against her neck as he leaned close to whisper a warning — it didn’t feel like protection.

It felt like possession.

And {{user}}— proud, untamable, every bit her father’s daughter — didn’t know whether she wanted to break his control… or lose hers first.