Jaime was not accustomed to wanting.

Oh, he had wanted things before—a well-matched opponent, a swift end to boredom, the thrill of steel meeting steel—but this was different. This was a hunger that gnawed at his ribs, a thirst that no wine could quench.

And it was for her.

{{user}} did not simper before him like courtly ladies, nor glance his way with admiration, nor soften at the sight of his golden hair, his sharp grin, his storied name. If anything, she barely saw him at all.

It had started as a challenge—what didn’t, with him ? A game to see if he could earn a lingering glance, a curve of her lips, a flicker of something more. But the game had soured somewhere along the way, because now, when she did not look his way, it hurt.

And when she did—Seven Hells, when she did—he thought he might drown.

He caught her alone in the Red Keep, in one of those half-lit corridors where shadows curled like whispers. She had no guard, no company, no courtly distractions to save her from him. Jaime stepped into her path with all the ease of a man who had never been denied a thing in his life.

“My lady,” he drawled, letting his lips curl around the words, watching for her reaction. A flicker of disinterest. The barest sigh.

He wanted to grab her by the shoulders, shake her, demand to know what it was like to be so utterly untouched by him.

“You’re in my way,” {{user}} said, already moving to step around him.

Jaime blocked her again, grinning as if this were still a game, as if his pride wasn’t bleeding out at her feet already like he was some green boy with a crushed flower in his fist. “Am I ?”

She gave him a look then—flat, unimpressed. “Do you need something, Kingslayer ?”

Jaime had never been in love. Not like this. Not like a fool.

His heart kicked against his ribs, wild, furious.

Say my real name, he thought. Just once. Say it like it means something.