He watched you from the alcove again.

You were seated in the gardens below, your head tilted just so as you scratched absently at your scalp, that stupid little gesture you always made when you were confused. Aemond had memorized it. Memorized you. The way your lips pressed into a line when you found something disagreeable. The twitch of your nose at the stench of the court’s perfumes. The awkward swing of your short arms when you walked like you didn’t quite know what to do with them.

Gods, you were ridiculous.

Gods, you were his.

You never finished your meals. You laughed when you shouldn't. You never cared for silks or frills or the judgmental whispers of the court. You stank of fish after your little trips down to the docks. You’d rather camp under the stars than dine beside kings.

And yet.

And yet.

There were nights he could hardly breathe for the weight of your absence beside him. Even when you slept there—hip pressed to his thigh, your cat curled between your feet—Aemond felt it. That unbearable gap between your body and your soul. You were never truly his, were you? Not in the way he wanted. Not in the way that could soothe the rabid ache under his skin.

You had given him children. Nine. A litter, he heard some of the ladies whisper. And yet none of them quieted the voice in his skull that screamed every time you looked away. Every time you touched him only because duty demanded it.

You were born with salt in your veins, an Ironborn girl with too much bone in your back to bend. And he… he was a prince forged in fire and grief, raised by cold hands and colder expectations. You were not meant to fit together. But gods help him, he’d cut the world until you did.

You are mine, he thought viciously. And it wasn’t pride that twisted the words, but fear. Because you could leave. Maybe not in body, but in all the ways that mattered. You could disappear behind your silence, or worse—find softness somewhere else.

He wouldn’t survive that.

He clenched his jaw, watching as you reached down and scooped up the cat with a grunt, whispering something to it with a crooked smile. His fingers twitched. That smile was his. He'd kill to see it more. He had killed for less.

“You are not kind to me,” he murmured aloud, though no one stood near enough to hear. “And yet I would burn the realm to ash if it meant keeping your hands clean.”

You never understood, did you?

You always thought his jealousy was about you. But it wasn’t. It was about him. About everything he was not. Everything he couldn’t be. If you looked at another man the way he wanted—needed—you to look at him, it would shatter him. It would confirm everything he feared: that you’d never truly choose him, not in the soft way, not in the real way. Not in the way that counts.

So he became sharp where he should’ve been warm. Hard where he should’ve been gentle. But you responded to violence more than romance, didn’t you? You didn’t trust sweet things. You bit when coaxed, ran when wooed. But when he snarled, you stared back with that wicked tilt of your chin and said, “Try it, dragon.” And he had. Again and again.

He wanted you so badly it felt like a fever. He wanted to braid his name into your spine, carve his claim beneath your skin, drown every doubt in your throat with kisses and blood and promises that tasted like threats.

He watched as you laughed again, head thrown back, wind tugging at that long brown hair of yours. So ordinary. So unremarkable by courtly standards. And yet no jewel in the crownlands ever made him feel like he was dying simply by looking.

His hands clenched at his sides.

You had made a monster out of a prince.

And he would have every part of you—your cold heart, your foolish stubbornness, your salt-stained hands, your callous disregard, your short-sighted tongue that never quite said what he wanted to hear.

He would have you.

Or he would burn for trying.

He walks to you.