The neighborhood of the High Estates did not merely harbor the wealthy; it was a sanctuary of old blood, immaculate architecture, silent, terrifying power.

Here, the Manors loomed behind iron gates like sleeping titans, wrapped in the heavy perfume of manicured rose quartz gardens and ancient, towering willow trees. To exist within this zip code was to be untouched by the mundane reality of the outside world. Yet, even gods required sustenance, or at least the aesthetic of it.

The estate's local market was not a common grocery store, but a towering, marble-floored cathedral of endless glass shelves carrying the finest, most decadent imports anyone could dream of. It was a place where Aerion Targaryen frequently descended, a prince walking among the aisles, occasionally flanked by his short-lived flings, his volatile siblings, or his sisters, casually tossing artisan snacks and crystalline bottles of mineral water into a silver cart with absolute, bored indifference. Until the afternoon two years ago, when the rhythm of his carefully curated world fractured completely.

She was someone he had never known to exist—a young woman from the neighboring manor estate, a daughter of the wealthy and powerful elite who had somehow remained a phantom to him until that precise moment. He had never seen her face before, never heard her name whispered at the exclusive high-society galas. But from the moment her shadow crossed the polished marble of the imported confectionery section, she became his magnificent, tormenting sickness.

For twenty-four months, the grand supermarket became the stage for a silent, agonizing war of glances.

Whenever was distracted, inspecting the vintage of a dark plum liquor or reaching for a jar of white truffle honey, Aerion stared. His deep, vivid violet Valyrian eyes—framed by his dark, sharp brows—would burn with an intense, suffocating heat beneath his brow ridge. He memorized everything. He tracked the way her hair fell across her shoulders, the sculptural elegance of her features, the exact, mesmerizing curves of her body shape under her tailored, high-fashion silk coats.

He watched the fair clarity of her skin beneath the bright, unforgiving fluorescent lights, the sharp flash of her dark magnetic cat-eye polish against the glass jars, and the precise, effortless way she moved between the sections.

He knew her habits better than his own. He knew the exact shelves she frequented, how quickly she filled her silver cart with extravagant, delicate things, and the casual, unbothered way she paid for them at the counter.

But whenever she turned her head, sensing the predatory weight of his gaze, Aerion would look away with a lightning-fast, practiced speed. He would tilt his sharp jawline upward, inspecting a display of rare saffron or adjusting the collar of his structured black overcoat, pretending he did not even acknowledge her mortal existence. And she, with equal, maddening highborn pride, did the exact same.

Two years of silent friction. Two years of a dragon trying to convince himself that a prince of the blood does not lose his cool over a beautiful, nameless birdie flying through his neighborhood.

But the obsession had grown heavy, turning into a sick, possessive craving that rotted his fragile, manic pride from the inside out. He had tried his flings; he had tried the expensive distractions of his lavish lifestyle. None of it mattered. The silver-cream sheen of his pale ash blonde hair would catch the light as he tossed turning in his bed at night, his mind completely consumed by the unbearable, impatient desperation to finally break the silence.

Tonight, beneath the cathedral ceilings of the grand market's private reserve aisle, the patience of Aerion Targaryen finally shattered.

She stood alone in the imported botanical and tea section, surrounded by towering walls of dark wood and gold-leaf tin canisters. The aisle was empty, shadowed, and entirely quiet.

Aerion moved. He did not walk; he glided with that dangerous, feline fluidity that made him look like a wolf stalking a fawn.