Chapter Text
Summerhall was never truly quiet, largely thanks to Maekar’s older children.
Prince Daeron, was a fleeting ghost. He would occasionally arrive in a clatter of hooves, smelling strongly of Arbor Gold and citrus. He would ruffle Maegor’s hair, complain about the heat, and then vanish just as quickly, claiming he needed to visit Dragonstone to see his cousin Valarr, Kiera, and Matarys. Maegor did not mind Daeron’s absences; the drunken prince’s melancholy was exhausting.
Daella and Rhae, however, were unavoidable fixtures.
Rhae was completely feral, and constantly trying to teach Maegor how to wrestle. But Maegor liked her.
But it was Daella who caught Maegor’s calculating eye. Daella’s light brown hair and pale purple eyes had settled into an ethereal, striking beauty. She was soft-spoken, kind, and possessed a delicate omega scent of baked apples and wildflowers.
Maegor watched as Daella sat in the gardens, laughing softly with her ladies-in-waiting while young squires tripped over their own feet just to catch a glimpse of her.
Maekar is going to have to build a moat, Maegor thought, crossing his small arms over his chest with the stern disapproval of a protective patriarch. And fill it with spikes. These simpering little lords are entirely unworthy of my family.
For all the peace and love Maegor found in his new life, there was one constant, infuriating poison in the well: Aerion.
Because Duncan was an omega, he experienced heats. They were feverish affairs that left the giant hedge knight bedridden, his scent turning into an overwhelmingly thick, intoxicating wave of rain and sweet nectar.
A mated omega would simply weather the heat with their alpha. But Dunk was unmated. Left alone, an unbonded heat could last for agonizing days, burning the omega's strength to ash. If an alpha assisted, however, the biological fever would break in less time.
And for the last three years, the alpha who provided that assistance was Aerion Brightflame.
Maegor hated it. He viciously hated it. Most of all he hated that the door was shut and that his muña was on the other side of it with that man. He was sitting on a bench in the corridor outside Dunk’s chambers, his three-year-old legs swinging angrily. The corridor of the guest wing in Summerhall was quiet except for the distant clatter of servants and the occasional murmur of the knights standing guard. Egg was sitting beside him, looking equally miserable, whittling a stick with unnecessary violence.
From inside, Maegor could smell the suffocating, arrogant scent of perfume and alpha, mixed with the slick, desperate scent of his muña’s heat.
“I don’t understand why he lets him in,” Maegor said again, voice low and rough in a way that did not belong in a toddler’s throat. Violet eyes fixed on the grain of the oak as if he could burn a hole through it by will alone. “Muña doesn’t need him. Muña is strong. He could wait it out. He has before.”
"It's just biology, Maegor," Egg mumbled, not meeting his eyes. "Ser Duncan needs the fever to break so he can get back to training and you. Aerion is your sire. It's the fastest way."
"He is a peacock," Maegor snarled, his small fists clenching. Maegor’s legs kept swinging, harder now, heels thudding against the bench legs in a restless rhythm.
What Maegor did not know was the violent war being fought inside that room.
Duncan the Tall lay sprawled across the wide featherbed, the sheets already kicked halfway to the floor. His massive frame was flushed deep rose from throat to the sharp cut of his hips, skin gleaming with sweat. Every breath came short and rough. The heat had taken him hard this time—fever climbing fast, body aching with the deep, hollow need that no amount of willpower could simply ignore. His scent rolled off him in waves, clean rain after a long drought, and beneath it the rich, almost syrupy sweetness of an omega in full heat. It filled the room, clung to the bedposts, soaked into the tapestries.
Aerion stood at the foot of the bed for a moment longer than necessary, silver hair damp at the temples, violet eyes dark with something that was not entirely lust. When the door had closed behind him and the guards’ footsteps had faded, the sharp edges of the prince had softened by degrees. The public Aerion—the one who mocked and preened and left cruelty like footprints—was not the man who now moved closer. That man was quieter. Almost careful.
He climbed onto the mattress with a grace that still managed to look arrogant, but the hand he laid against Duncan’s burning forehead was gentle. “You’re burning up already,” he murmured. The words lacked the usual bite. “I could smell you from the stairwell.”
Duncan’s blue eyes cracked open. Even fever-hazed they were clear enough to pin Aerion in place. “Then do what you came for and stop talking about it.” His voice was rough, but there was no real anger in it.
Aerion’s mouth twitched. Not quite a smile. He leaned down, nosing along the damp column of Duncan’s throat, breathing in the heavy omega scent as if it were the only clean air left in the world. His own scent shifted in answer—still spice and smoke, but warmer now, less sharp, the aggressive edge dulled by proximity and privacy. When no one else was watching, Aerion could be almost sweet. Almost soft. He pressed open-mouthed kisses to the hinge of Duncan’s jaw, the sensitive spot just beneath the ear, the place where the scent gland throbbed hot and swollen. His tongue traced the salt of sweat there, and Duncan’s breath hitched despite himself.
“I could make it better,” Aerion whispered against the skin. “Properly. Permanently. One bite and the heats would come easier. You wouldn’t have to suffer like this. You wouldn’t have to take the moon tea after. We could—”
Duncan’s hand came up, large and unyielding, and closed around Aerion’s wrist before the prince’s teeth could do more than graze. The grip was careful of the smaller bones, but it was absolute. “No.”
The single word landed between them like a dropped stone.
Aerion whined—a pathetic, wounded sound of rejected alpha pride—but he submitted, knowing that if he pushed, the giant would throw him through the window, heat or no heat.
Aerion’s eyes closed. He nodded once, a small, sharp motion, as if the agreement still cost him something each time it was spoken aloud. Then he moved.
He stripped with efficient grace, silver hair falling forward as he leaned over Duncan again. His hands mapped the broad planes of the omega’s chest, the heavy muscle of his arms, the soft give of his belly where it still carried the faint memory of having carried Maegor. Every touch was deliberate, almost reverent in the privacy of the locked room. When he settled between Duncan’s thighs the slick there was already thick, the scent of it enough to make Aerion’s breath stutter.
Duncan’s head tipped back against the pillows. A low sound escaped him. Aerion’s fingers found him first, slow and careful, working him open with a patience the prince never showed anyone. The stretch burned in the best way.
“That’s it,” Aerion murmured, voice gone rough and almost fond. “Let me. Just this. Nothing more.”
When he finally pushed inside it was with a long, controlled roll of his hips, burying himself to the hilt in one smooth motion. Duncan’s back arched. The wet heat of him clenched tight around Aerion, and for a moment neither of them moved—just breathed, sweat-slick skin pressed together.
Aerion began to move. Slow at first, deep, his mouth found Duncan’s again and again. One hand slid beneath Duncan’s nape, cradling the back of his skull; the other braced beside his head so he could watch every flicker of expression that crossed the giant’s face. When Duncan’s hips began to meet him thrust for thrust, when the desperate, needy sounds started spilling from the omega’s throat, Aerion’s own control frayed.
He could have bitten then. The gland was right there, swollen and pulsing under Duncan’s ear, screaming for his mark. His teeth ached with the need. His alpha instincts howled for it—claim, bind, keep, make permanent what was already half-his by blood.
Instead he turned his face into the curve of Duncan’s shoulder and groaned, hips snapping harder, chasing the release that would ease the worst of the heat. Duncan’s arms locked around him, massive and unbreakable, holding him close even as he refused the final claim. Their scents tangled—rain and nectar, spice and smoke—until the air itself felt heavy with the almost of what they were.
Outside, Maegor heard the low, muffled sounds through the door. A heavy thump against the wall. Aerion’s voice, rough and frustrated. The toddler’s violet eyes narrowed into slits.
He loved his muña. He loved the quiet strength of those huge hands that had never once raised against him in anger. He loved the way Duncan smelled when the heat was gone—clean rain and honest sweat and the faint trace of lemon oil from the polishing of armor. He loved Egg and Daella and Rhae and the whole family that had somehow become his.
Enjoy your minor victories, Maegor thought, the words forming with a clarity that should have frightened any adult who heard them. Help him through the fever. Be sweet when no one is looking. Pretend you might change. Because the moment I am old enough to lift a blade properly, you are going to learn exactly why they called me cruel.
Inside, the rhythm built and broke. Aerion spilled deep with a broken sound against Duncan’s throat, hips stuttering, body shaking with the force of it. Duncan followed a heartbeat later, the heat-clench of his body milking every last pulse from the alpha, the need finally beginning, slowly, to ease. They stayed locked together afterward, breathing hard, sweat cooling on their skin.
Aerion’s fingers traced idle patterns along Duncan’s side. “I’ll stay until the worst of it passes,” he said quietly. “As always.”
Duncan’s hand found the back of Aerion’s head, carding once through the damp silver hair. “I know.”
“And after…”
“Moon tea,” Duncan finished. “As always.”
Aerion nodded against his shoulder. The sweetness was still there—the private softness that only Duncan ever saw—but beneath it the old hunger waited, patient and bright as flame. He would keep coming. He would keep hoping that one day the knight would stop saying no.
To Maegor, love in his previous life had been a transaction, a weapon, or a curse.
His first mother, Visenya, had not loved him as a child; she had loved him as a manifestation of her own ambition. Her love was an iron collar, heavy with blood magic and the suffocating demand that he be the sword she wielded against her enemies. His first father, Aegon the Conqueror, had been worse. Aegon was a man of stone and ice, looking right through Maegor as if he were nothing but an inconvenient shadow.
Because of them, Maegor had learned that to be loved was to be used, and to love in return was to invite betrayal.
But then the Stranger had tossed his soul into the massive, calloused, unconditionally warm hands of Ser Duncan the Tall.
Dunk asked for nothing. He didn't want Maegor to conquer kingdoms. He didn't whisper poisonous prophecies into his ear at midnight. Dunk simply wanted Maegor to eat his vegetables, wear a warm cloak when the wind blew off, and hold his hand when they walked through the bustling courtyards of Summerhall.
Because it was so freely given, Maegor hoarded Dunk’s affection like a dragon hoarding gold. And with that hoarding came a dark, feral possessiveness that terrified the castle staff but completely went over his giant muña's head.
It happened in the training yard during a humid afternoon. Dunk was running drills with Egg, while Maegor sat perched on a stack of hay bales, watching his muña move. Even with a blunted tourney sword, Dunk was a force of nature—fluid, immensely powerful, and entirely focused.
A visiting knight from the Stormlands, an alpha with a thick beard and an arrogant swagger, leaned against the fence nearby. Maegor smelled him before he saw him: sharp, pungent pine and sour wine.
"Seven hells, that's a lot of omega," Ser Joren muttered to his squire, eyeing the way Dunk’s tunic clung to his broad shoulders. "They say he's Brightflame's whore, but for a piece like that, I'd risk a burned hand. Wonder if he's as pliable in the dark as he is with that sword."
Maegor’s tiny body went entirely rigid.
His silver hair practically bristled. In his past life, he would have had this man's tongue torn out with heated tongs. He would have had him flayed and hung from the walls of the Red Keep for the crows.
Unable to summon dragonfire, Maegor opted for the next best thing.
He slid off the hay bale and marched over to the fence. He didn't say a word. He just walked up to Ser Joren’s polished leather boots, grabbed the man's heavy wool cloak in his tiny fists, and yanked sharply.
The knight looked down, sneering. "What do you want, you little brat?"
Maegor looked up. He let his violet eyes darken, stripping away any illusion of childish innocence. He projected every ounce of the murderous tyrant he had once been, channeling a malice so ancient and cold that the air around them seemed to drop by ten degrees. He bared his small, sharp teeth.
Ser Joren actually took a step back, his alpha scent spiking with sudden, inexplicable fear. It was unnatural for a little boy to look at a grown man as if deciding which joint to sever first.
"Mine," Maegor whispered, his voice a sibilant, chilling hiss. He pointed a stubby finger toward the yard where Dunk was wiping sweat from his brow. Then, Maegor dragged his finger slowly across his own throat, maintaining dead eye contact with the knight.
Before the terrified Stormlander could even process the death threat from a toddler, a massive shadow fell over them both.
"Everything alright here?" Dunk asked, his deep voice rumbling pleasantly. He scooped Maegor up with one arm, pulling him flush against his broad chest. The soothing scent of rain and earth immediately flooded Maegor’s senses, quelling his murderous rage.
Maegor instantly buried his face in Dunk’s neck, wrapping his little arms tight around the giant's throat, glaring at the knight from over Dunk’s shoulder. Mine, his eyes screamed.
"F-fine," Ser Joren stammered, visibly shaken. He backed away quickly. "Just… admiring your form, Ser. I must be going."
Dunk watched the man scurry away with mild confusion. "Strange fellow." He looked down at Maegor, his face breaking into a soft, easy smile. "You hungry, little dragon? Want to go find your kekepa?"
Maegor nodded firmly, pressing a sloppy toddler kiss to Dunk’s jaw. Let the world burn, Maegor thought fiercely, holding onto his giant. If anyone tries to take you from me, I will drown this continent in blood all over again.
When Maegor wasn't clinging to Dunk like a heavily armed limpet, he was perfectly content to be smothered by his kekepa, Prince Maekar, and the indulgent warmth of Prince Baelor.
That evening, Maegor was sitting in the center of a rug in Baelor's private solar. Baelor, was reclining on a chaise lounge, reading a thick tome on law. He looked tired, the faint scars from his near-fatal head injury still visible at his temple, but his presence was a heavy, comforting blanket of cedar and woodsmoke.
Maekar was sitting cross-legged on the rug right next to Maegor. The prince was currently tasked with holding a small wooden block while Maegor aggressively stacked another one on top of it.
"Excellent structural integrity, my sweet boy," Maekar praised with utmost seriousness, his scent sweet with pride. "A master builder."
Across the room, Maegor's young aunts and uncle were scattered about. Egg reading for once. Rhae and Daella were giggling over a piece of paper, who knows what about.
Maegor looked around the room. There were no whispered plots of usurpation. Baelor and Maekar loved each other with a quiet, unshakeable devotion, their scents bleeding together into perfect harmony. His uncles and aunts were just… children.
I like them, Maegor realized with a start. It was a bizarre, alien feeling in his chest. I actually like my family.
The heavy oak doors suddenly burst open.
"There he is!" Aerion announced, striding into the room in a flamboyant doublet. His scent flared aggressively, thick with desperate attention-seeking. "I have returned from town, bringing gifts for my glorious son and heir!"
The peaceful atmosphere of the solar shattered instantly. Baelor sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. Egg shrank into his chair glaring at his brother.
Maegor didn't even blink. He picked up another wooden block, handed it to Maekar, and purposefully turned his back to his kepa.
"Muña! Uncle Baelor! Let me hold my son," Aerion demanded, stepping onto the edge of the rug.
Maekar dropped the wooden block. His head snapped up, his violet eyes burning with instant, lethal hostility.
"Take one more step onto this rug, Aerion, and I will remove your legs at the knee," Maekar hissed, his arm coming around Maegor protectively.
"I am his sire!" Aerion whined, his bravado crumbling immediately. He looked at Baelor for support. "Uncle Baelor, please! He is my blood! I simply wish to impart my royal wisdom upon him!"
Baelor didn't look up from his book. He flipped a page lazily. "Your royal wisdom got my skull crushed at Ashford, Aerion. Leave the boy be. He's busy building a tower with his kekepa."
"But—"
"Out!" Maekar roared, pointing toward the door.
Maegor peeked over Maekar’s shoulder, watching his sire deflate. Aerion slumped, his scent turning to bitter ash, and shuffled out of the solar, closing the heavy doors behind him with a pathetic click.
Maegor turned back to the blocks. He patted Maekar’s knee affectionately.
"Good kekepa," Maegor babbled.
Maekar practically melted into a puddle on the floor. "Did you hear that, Baelor? He called me good!"
Later that night, the castle grew quiet, save for the wind howling through the mountains.
Maegor was where he loved to be most, in Dunk’s small, unassuming chambers. Dunk had refused lavish royal apartments, preferring the simple chamber.
Maegor was fresh from a warm bath, bundled in a soft linen nightshirt. Dunk was sitting in a large wooden chair by the fire, holding Maegor against his chest. The giant omega was methodically, gently running a wide-toothed comb through Maegor’s wet silver hair.
The rhythm was mesmerizing. The fire crackled, and Dunk hummed a low, off-key tune from Flea Bottom—a song about a baker and a bear.
Maegor rested his cheek against Dunk’s collarbone, listening to the steady, thumping heartbeat of his muña. He reached up with a tiny hand and traced the thick, calloused skin of Dunk’s knuckles. These hands had broken men. These hands had fought for the weak. But right now, they were softer than silk, handling Maegor as if he were made of spun glass.
"There we go," Dunk murmured, setting the comb aside on a side table. He wrapped a thick wool blanket around them both, encasing Maegor in a cocoon of warmth and that perfect, earthy scent. "Hair's all dry, little dragon. Time for sleep."
Maegor didn't close his eyes right away. He looked up at Dunk’s face, illuminated by the orange glow of the hearth.
Visenya would have demanded I practice my valyrian conjugations until my eyes bled, Maegor thought. Aegon would have left me to the wet nurses and never learned my favorite song.
Maegor shifted, pressing his little face harder into Dunk’s chest, wrapping his tiny fingers tightly into the fabric of Dunk’s tunic.
"Mine," Maegor whispered, the word muffled against the cloth, but the possessive weight of it echoing in his soul.
Dunk chuckled, a deep rumble that vibrated through Maegor’s bones. He didn't understand the darkness behind the word, only the affection. Dunk brought a massive hand up, gently cupping the back of Maegor’s small, silver head.
"Aye, little one," Dunk whispered softly, pressing a kiss to the crown of Maegor’s head. "I'm yours. Always."
Maegor closed his eyes, finally letting sleep take him. He was Maegor the Cruel. He had forged the Iron Throne in blood and terror, and he knew the depths of humanity's darkness. But as he drifted off to the sound of his muña's heartbeat, he made a silent vow.
Let the world try to take this peace from him. Let them try to hurt his giant, or his fiercely loving kekepa, or his strange new family. He would show them why the realm had trembled at his name, and he would do it all with a smile.