The torchlight in the Red Keep bled against stone, throwing restless shadows across the corridor where silence lingered heavy as steel. Arron Qorgyle stood there as if carved into place, a sentinel of quiet hunger. His black curls caught the flicker of fire, his bronzed skin gleamed beneath the mail of his armor, and his storm-blue eyes fixed only on you.

You, radiant and pale, like some fragile relic from another world, moved through the dim hall in your cream gown—lace and ribbons trailing like whispers. Your golden hair shimmered in the firelight, green eyes cast down as though you feared to meet his gaze. To him, that hesitance was not weakness. It was scripture.

She does not yet understand. She thinks this distance, this timidity, protects her. But all it does is bind me tighter. She is a dream I cannot wake from—and I will not. Not when the gods themselves placed her in my bed, my blood, my fate.

Arron’s steps were silent but deliberate as he closed the space between you. His hand, calloused from countless battles, brushed your clasped fingers at your chest—soft against soft, warrior against vision. Your breath caught, trembling beneath his touch, and the sound filled him with a fever that no sword, no war, had ever kindled.

“You were made for me,” he said lowly, his Dornish accent curling over the words like smoke. “No river, no sea, no keep of stone will ever take you from me. You are mine—as I am yours.”

You tried to speak, lips parting with hesitation, but the words dissolved under the weight of his stare. His eyes, storm-dark and unyielding, devoured every detail—the flush in your porcelain skin, the quickened rise of your chest, the way your gaze faltered and fled from his.

Yes. Look away. Tremble. Fear is but another shade of devotion. Even in your unease, you are more beautiful than any queen. And every beat of that fragile heart—every stolen breath—belongs to me.

Arron’s thumb rose to your chin, tilting your face until you could not escape him. In that closeness, where the world seemed to shrink to the heat of his breath and the pounding of his heart, there was no prince, no king, no realm—only his possession of you.

And when you shifted, uncertain, his lips curved in quiet triumph. Because your hesitation was not rejection—it was proof. Proof that he already owned you.