Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

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chapter one: i look in people’s windows (like i’m some deranged weirdo)

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“Who are they?”

“You certainly know how to zero in on the crème de la crème of a high school social scene. Those are the Targtowers.”

“…that cannot possibly be their real name.”

“It’s not,” Beth Cassel clarified. “It’s a portmanteau some people use to refer to the Hightower siblings and the Targaryen twins. They are the adopted foster children of Doctor Hightower and her…” she paused, searching for the appropriate word.

“Controversially young trophy husband,” Jeyne Poole offered, very helpfully.

“Stay at home partner,” Beth diplomatically settled on, ignoring Jeyne.

“That’s truly admirable. They took care of all these kids and provided them with a good home. I mean, it mustn’t have been easy—growing up in the system,” the new girl said, her emotions reflecting her sentiment in their sincerity.

“I don’t think Doctor Hightower can have kids,” Jeyne whispered, conspiratorially. “So it was either adoption or her husband would have needed to start breeding dogs to keep them company.”

A spike of irritation came from the new girl. “That doesn’t make what they did any less kind.”

Beth gave her a sidelong look and picked up the conversation. “The family is new in town. Well, newish. They moved here two years ago from Frostfangs. The Hightowers are the biggest thing that happened to the town before your arrival.”

Jeyne shook her head, brown curls bouncing with the movement. “Seriously, who chooses of their own volition, to move to Boringsville Central of all places in Westeros?”

“I did.”

“Yeah, but your dad lives here. You are practically one of the native townies. Hightowers chose Eastwatch. That’s weird.”

“You mentioned they moved down from the Frostfangs. Pretty sure that’s not exactly a metropolitan hub either.”

“You guys don’t get it. Doctor Hightower is a trauma surgeon, and Mum says she’s damn good at her job. She’s pretty young, too, only in her mid-thirties. Career-wise, she could definitely do better than a jerkwater town in the middle of nowhere.”

“Maybe it’s the warmhearted hospitality of the tight-knit small town community that drew her in,” the new girl said with a certain sarcastic bite that escaped the notice of the other girls. She peeked over her shoulder, just as another student passed in front of his line of sight of her, obscuring her visage from view. “The bit I’m confused about: is why, exactly, does one of them have their tongue down the other’s throat? In public space?”

“Ah, here comes the scandalous part: the family is ripe with quasi-incestious relationships.” Jeyne’s emotional landscape lit up like a Yule tree; she was giddy with anticipation. It was hard to tell if it was gossip that excited her, or the possibility of horrifying the newbie with the tales of Hightower family’s perversions.

Apprehension spiked through the new girl, followed by a bright flare of concern. “Errr… that sounds illegal.”

“It’s not that serious, relax. It’s just… their dating pool is their house,” Jeyne snickered, waggling her eyebrows suggestively. “The short guy with the pornstach and no experience with a hairbrush is Aegon Hightower. The Rubenesque brunette next to him, currently on the receiving end of the deep-throat tongue exploration, is his sister-wife—”

“Wife?”

Jeyne cocked an eyebrow. Well, attempted to. She was not very good at that. “Sister-girlfriend does not have the same ring to it, does it?”

“They are not related, not really,” Beth rushed to explain. “Technically, they are brother and sister through adoption. But they are not real siblings,” she stressed, not as enchanted with rumour-mongering as her best friend.

“They are, though,” the new girl bristled. “That’s literally how adoption works.”

Beth rolled her eyes. “Fine. They are not blood related, then.”

Jeyne shrugged, conceding the point. “Aegon and Helaena look nothing alike, but they have the same name and live under the same roof while very publicly dating. Eastwatch is a small town and this is one of those things that’s bound to cause some controversy.”

Beth gave a nervous giggle, suddenly getting sheepish. “If anything, I think there might be something going on between Aegon and Aemond.”

Scratch that. He was wrong. Cassel was as bad as Poole—worse, even. She simply had different targets.

Jeyne groaned, slumping uncomfortably into her rigid, plastic chair. “Not this again.”

“Listen, you weren’t there in gym class when Aegon had some sort of fit,” Beth defended, her face flushing. “He went rigid, started shaking and twitching. Aemond, quite literally, growled, picked Aegon up by the waist, and threw him over his shoulder like he weighed no more than a bag of flour, before excusing them both from class. That was insane. It was an alpha claiming an omega in heat—”

Daeron’s face contorted with an emotion halfway between mortification and horror, and Aemond was sure that if he was still able to, Daeron would have been luminously blushing from whatever thoughts he had picked up from Beth Cassel. Aemond smothered a snort; it served his brother right for snooping on the minds of hormonal teenage girls. It was a very dangerous place.

“Do not listen to Beth,” Jeyne told the new girl authoritatively. “She’s obsessed ‘cause dramas have rotted her brain. You dangle two pretty boys in front of her and she’ll be writing smut fanfic quicker than you can blink.”

“Hear that, brother,” Aegon whispered, low enough that only the family could hear, after he finally unlatched himself from Helaena’s mouth with a wet pop. “Apparently, I need a big, strong man to get me in hand and fill me up with his massive co—”

Aemond kicked him in the shin under the table hard enough that Aegon yelped, loudly and within human hearing range. A few students turned their heads to stare curiously at them, but Aemond ignored everything, including his brother’s mutinous mutterings. Helaena smoothed down Aegon’s unkempt hair absentmindedly, trying to appease him. Aemond went back to picking at the sad, deflated grapes that served as his decoy lunch and pretending he was not shamelessly eavesdropping on the lowdown the humans were giving on his family.

“—sitting next to Helaena are the wonder twins: Daenerys and Aemond Targaryen. They are foster kids Doctor Hightower took in when they were ten, or something. They are somehow related to her husband, but you wouldn’t know it by looking at them. Daenerys is five-feet-nothing of pure, Machiavellian chaos and Aemond’s face constantly has that distinctly self-assured look a cat adopts when it brings you a fresh kill.” She bit her lip, seemingly considering her words. “Both are proper fit, have this long, gorgeous, moon-pale hair, and look like they are up to no good—you can’t miss them.”

“Moon-pale,” Jeyne snorted. “You are so full of it.”

Beth shrugged. She had frizzy ginger hair that misbehaved at the slightest hint of humidity and she was constantly trying to tame it. “What can I say: those enviable locks bring out the poet in me.”

“Okay, not to interrupt the riveting salacious allegations of a small town community, but the freakishly tall guy with the eyepatch—Aemon, or whatever—”

“Aemond,” both Beth and Jeyne chorused.

“Aemond, sure. Him. He cannot possibly be high-school aged. I know The O.C. tried to convince us twenty-five-year-old adults are what sophomores look like, but come on. Has he been held back a year… or three?”

“Nope. Aemond’s eighteen. Top of the grade, too. His face is just that way.”

“And his body,” Jeyne added dreamily, salacity dripping off her. “And his overall demeanour. His everything, really.”

“But he’s harmless,” Beth carried on. “Aloof. Reserved—”

“Mysterious. Intense. Hot—”

Beth pinched Jeyne’s arm, focusing her. “Aemond keeps to himself. I don’t think I’ve heard him speak more than a hundred words outside of class in two years.”

Daenerys looked up from her doodling. Her eyes were round and wide; twin moons of lucent white-gold set in a milk-pale face, framed by white eyebrows and whiter eyelashes, and sweeps of shimmery powder-blue eyeshadow. She caught his gaze, amusement sparkling through her like tiny fireworks, and bumped his shoulder good-naturedly.

Aemond projected a burst of appreciation her way, but the curve of his mouth flattened nonetheless—somehow, he felt disappointed. Harmless? Him? That was insulting. The gossip revolving around him was barely scandalous, no sordid details and not even a hint of fright and horror. Had he lost his touch? He should casually terrify more teenagers in his free-time, just to make a point.

The new girl shook her head, disbelief rolling off her in palpable waves. Long, thick hair spilled down her back in fulsome waves, glimmering weirwood-red and autumn-gold under harsh, fluorescent lights. “That is not a teenager. A uni student, yeah, for sure. Or a grown man with a full-time job, a four-one-k plan, and a mortgage. Did he monopolise all the nutrients in the womb? His twin is half his height.”

“I told Alicent I should have pretended to be her younger brother,” Aemond grumbled, soft-toned and vampire-low. “I could have been a recluse relative who lives in the basement and is allergic to sunlight and fun, social interactions and anything resembling joy or spontaneity. I’d only emerge at night to haunt the house and scare the neighbours. It certainly would have been much more preferable than suffering through high school. Again.”

Daenerys wrinkled her nose. “But you and Mama don’t look anything alike.”

“So what? I could have worn a wig.” He gave a put-upon sigh and shrugged his braid off his shoulder. “Teens these days don’t look like me. We can’t just get away with saying ‘oh, that’s Aemond, he’s built like an ox because he is Stormlands-bred farmboy’ or ‘oh, that’s Aemond, he looks like he’s dead inside because we plucked him from a coal mine’. Child labour is frowned upon, these days, you know.”

“They are Lys twins*, actually, less than a year apart,” Beth clarified, continuing her conversation. “That’s why Daenerys and Daeron are in your grade, while Aegon, Helaena, and Aemond are seniors, like me.”

Aemond could tell the new girl was looking at them—studying them—but he could not see her face, even as he felt her gaze. Too many kids were getting up and moving about the cafeteria, obstructing his line of vision. He subtly shifted in his seat, trying to get a better angle to observe, to no avail.

“Are all of them…”

“Sinfully fit? Unfairly beautiful? Yes,” Jeyne sighed, forlornly.

“I was going to say tragically anaemic. That chalky-white pallor and purple shadows under the eyes cannot be signs of good health.” Trickles of sympathy bled out of Sansa Stark like leaking water—tinged by curiosity and clawing pity. “It’s like I’m looking at a convention of frail Victorian children sick with consumption. Are they seriously ill? Is the good doctor A Walk to Remember-ing teenagers?”

“Sansa!”

“What? I cannot comment on their personality or moral fibre—I don’t know these people. But I can point out they look concerningly pasty-faced. Eastwatch is under a near constant cover of clouds and rain, and none of you guys are that pale. Even I have more colour to me and I’m a UV-light allergic redhead.”

Next to Daeron, Aegon snickered, having decided to listen in on the humans’ conversation, too. He elbowed their youngest in the ribs jovially. “I think we should invest in make-up, if people are starting to think we look terminally-ill and are wasting away.”

“Do we really?” murmured Helaena dreamily. “Maybe we should try that next time as a backstory. I’ll feign fainting spells at school and enthrone myself in a beautiful sickroom at home, and add poignant coughs to the appropriate sentences.”

Helaena whipped out a lace handkerchief from the pocket of her charcoal-grey dress and covered her mouth delicately. In a grave tone, she said “Tomorrow, it will rain.” and gave a little experimental cough for emphasis.

Aemond and Daenerys politely clapped, while Aegon gave her a fond look and squeezed her thigh under the table. Helaena smiled and tipped her head bashfully.

“Are we being insensitive?” Aemond suddenly asked, as if the thought just occurred to him. “Daeron died of influenza. This must be upsetting to him.”

Daenerys frowned. “Actually, I think it was scarlet fever.”

“Nah, it was mumps. Right, bro?”

“You are all idiots,” Daeron pronounced, rolling his eyes. “It was typhoid. You know it was.”

Aegon threw his arm over Daeron’s shoulders and leaned in. “Aw, don’t sulk, baby bro. Better yet, is anything noteworthy happening on the Human FM radio?”

Daeron cocked his head to the side, briefly scanning the thoughts of the student body. “No… everyone is too wrapped up in the newest addition to the student body to have a productive thought in their head…”

Aemond personally found his judgmental tone to be hypocritical, given how Daeron was infringing on humans’ privacy in order to indulge in a bit of gossip. However, he himself was a self-acknowledged, eavesdropping, emotion-monitoring hypocrite—Aemond was not going to throw stones in glass houses.

“Wait. This is interesting. Saffron found out about Cissy,” Daeron finally divulged.

Aegon looked positively thrilled. “Oooh, Harry Hardyng is so going to get it.”

“Keep an ear out during the last period. That’s when they plan to confront him. Very publicly.”

The new girl’s voice snared Aemond’s attention again. It was clear and cultured, pleasant to the ear and with a rich depth to it. He sniffed the air, trying to catch her scent, but the cafeteria was oversaturated with humans and he could not discern one unknown girl amongst hundreds of bodies.

She was still speaking to Beth Cassel: “—who’s the guy with the gravity defying hair?”

“That’s Daeron Hightower. Pretty boy extraordinaire, whom us mere mortals, are worthy only of admiring from afar and dreaming longingly—”

“He’s a little high strung, but he’s actually quite nice to talk to,” Beth intervened.

“He doesn’t date, though, so don’t waste your time.” Jeyne sighed, crestfallen. “None of us are good-looking enough for the Targtowers.”

“Tried your luck?” the Stark girl whispered in an understanding tone.

“Not just me. Daeron is at least polite about it. Aemond shoots you down point blank and takes no prisoners. Waymar Royce tried to ask Daenerys out last year to a school dance and she straight up ran away from him. If it wasn’t so sad to watch, it would have been funny.”

The new girl patted Jeyne’s hand in commiseration. “Thanks for the heads up, but I’m not really interested in dating at the moment.”

“Why?”

“Do I need a reason to not want to date?”

“No, but I am curious.”

“Let’s go with: my only boyfriend came out of the closet six months into the relationship.” The tone she adopted was heartsore and glum, designed to evoke pity. Aemond tilted his head curiously. Her emotions revealed she spoke the truth, yet there was a wisp of dissemblance.

“Ouch.”

“It wasn’t exactly a pleasant experience to live through.” She shrugged, her spirits suddenly lifting, her glossy hair catching light with the motion. “But hey, Loras is happier now—he’s living his most authentic life and we’ve become best friends. In the end, it all worked out for the better.”

A crafty child, he decided. Prone to trickery and guile. She turned to face their table fully and, at last, Aemond saw her.

The Stark girl had a cat-like formation of facial beauty: angular features, dainty nose, distinct eyes. Hers was a beautiful face: glowing, smooth skin unmarred by neither time nor sun; a healthy blush mantled the tops of high cheekbones, rose-pink and beguiling with promise of succulent blood. Her shapely mouth was set into a perpetual pout, almost petulant; a dusting of freckles was scattered across her nose bridge; there was a small scar on the side of her jaw and her left eyebrow arched slightly higher than the right one—she was all the more charming for these blatantly human flaws.

Across the cafeteria Aemond caught her gaze: Sansa Stark had long eyes, slyly angled up at the corners like a feline’s; framed by thick, dark eyelashes—and vividly, unsettlingly blue. Her inquisitive stare slid off him and flickered across each of his siblings before settling on Daeron with a certain finality; a gravitas.

“Oh,” she murmured, her heart suddenly racing.

Aemond was about to tease Daeron over his new conquest, when he saw his brother was staring right back, wide-eyed and slack-jawed, as if struck. Bewilderment and unabashed intrigue raged through him—pushing out caution and trampling on his good sense. “I can’t hear her,” he muttered, half to himself.

Ah, hook, line, and sinker, thought Aemond, darkly. He lowered his head, lips almost brushing the shell of Dany’s ear.

“Reckon the girl’s a charm of powerful trouble,” Aemond murmured with grim amusement, low enough that none but his sister heard.

Daenerys did not answer, for right then Helaena fell limply into Aemond’s lap. She buried her face in her hands, lost in a vision. He shared a brief look with Daenerys over their sister’s head and Aemond readjusted his hold on Hel, cradling her gently in his arms and raising her up so she leaned onto his shoulder. Concerned, Dany reached out to grip Helaena’s knee, anchoring her, and Aemond eased the discomfort and the nausea the visions brought on with his gift.

Well, at least this school year was promising to be interesting. They hadn’t had a shake up in their family’s fragile status quo since spring of ‘89.

✨✨✨

Aegon drove Helaena home. The process of receiving visions of the future was not kind and their sister needed rest. Aemond, Daenerys, and Daeron stayed behind in school, much to the former’s annoyance.

Daeron slinked off in the direction of building two, where he had Biology class next—slouching, hands in the pockets of his beige chinos, bushy eyebrows furrowed deeply in concentration, his mouth set in a hard line in a vain attempt to dissuade humans from gaining interest.

It was fruitless, of course. Daeron was not the most comely out of the family—that dubious honour laid with Criston. However, unlike Criston—who secluded himself in the house and was suspected by the townsfolk to be a mail order groom—Daeron was polished and well-dressed, and projected an image of palatable normalcy. Despite the instinctual aversion humans have to vampires, people liked Daeron. He was personable and friendly; civilised in the way the rest of the siblings failed to imitate. Although Aemond seriously doubted any of the humans interested in him harboured any real, lasting affection. It was the dizzying glamour that was drawing them; prey entranced by the predator.

Aemond followed the rapidly departing figure out of the corner of an eye, pensive. Daeron was as much a slaveling to his gift as Aemond was, but he navigated it differently and was significantly more dependent on its interpretations. Aemond did not need to read his emotions to recognise that the total silence of Sansa Stark’s mind was, to Daeron, as fascinating as it was deeply perturbing.

“I don’t have a good feeling about this.”

Aemond tore his gaze off his brother and looked down at their youngest sister. He coolly raised an eyebrow. “Is it a regular feeling or one of your intuitions?”

“More like pattern recognition is rearing its ugly head.” Daenerys sighed, her white-gold eyes darkening to amber with worry. She wrung her hands nervously—a very human gesture. “Aemond, she’s a pretty redhead whose mind he cannot crack open and peruse at his own leisure. That spells trouble.”

“Told you.”

“Don’t gloat. It’s unattractive.”

“Not trying to attract you, sugar.”

“Ugh. You are being annoying.” Daenerys stomped her foot and Aemond laughed, short and sharp.

“I do believe it’s an older brother’s duty to be an annoyance to their younger sister, poppet. I aim to surpass expectations.” He tugged on a silver braid fondly and put a guiding palm between her shoulder blades. “Come. We have classes to attend. Wouldn’t want to miss Government and Politics with Maester Orwyle, would you?”

“Well, if I must,” Daenerys drawled. She ducked under his arm and popped it on her shoulder, wrapping her small fingers around his wrist.

“I wouldn’t worry about it too much,” she continued as they walked in tandem. Aemond was more than a foot taller than her, so he kept his strides short to match hers and tried not to outpace her gait. “It’s Daeron, after all. How much mischief can the golden boy get up to?”

How much indeed, Aemond thought, but kept his suspicions to himself. Dany was such a lively thing: high-spirited and affable; a bright contrast to the aloof, self-possessed vampire she called her twin. She never stayed dejected for long; her emotions tended to be buoyant and light—the positivity of them wrapped him up in a woolly cloud of contentment. Being around Dany was easy and Aemond liked how her emotions made him feel.

Aemond dropped her off by the door to her class, next to a pack of teenage girls Daenerys had made tentative friendships with. Their eyes followed him as he departed at a leisurely pace, hands habitually clasped behind his back, towards building six where Physics class awaited him in an hour.

With a gentle nudge from his gift, he made them rapidly lose interest, suddenly finding him boring and nondescript. He knew he should theoretically feel bad for the casually intrusive, high-handed way he wielded his gift with—it was objectively unethical. However, Aemond had been a morally flexible human and was reborn into an ethically compromised vampire. Influencing the emotions of unsuspecting humans was peanuts to what he used to get up to back in the Southern Essos.

He briefly considered heading to the library to kill time until his next class, when his cell phone buzzed silently in the back pocket of his jeans with a telltale vibration of an incoming text. Puzzled, Aemond quickly plucked it out and flipped it open. The screen lit up with a cool bluish glow, revealing the message:

HELAENA: He is going to drain her. Stop him.

Aemond shot off like a bolt of lightning.

There was no-one around to see him run at vampire speed, and even if there were, they would think a sudden gust of wind had blown through the halls. He dashed towards the Biology classroom on the other side of the school and was at location within minutes.

Aemond felt it before he approached the target—a thick, viscous bloodlust, overwhelming in its all-consuming intensity. It smashed into him like a mailed fist: his mouth flooded with venom; rows of razor-sharp, shark-like teeth pushed themselves out of the gums and extended into long, terrifying fangs; ravenous hunger clawed at his insides, ravaging through him, until it felt like it had ripped him to shreds from within.

This was not regular hunger. This was something else.

It took every ounce of the iron-fisted self-command Aemond had cultivated throughout the centuries to get ahold of the blinding, savage bloodthirst that had spilled out of Daeron and beyond the fragile grasp of his fraying restraint—and force it back down.

The Biology classroom had two entry points: one in the front, where the teacher and majority of the students focused their attention on a slide-show presentation; and one in the back, where Daeron sat in the last row, blessedly alone. Aemond soundlessly slammed the back door open and mercilessly rammed the humans with a powerful cocktail of don’t look, don’t hear, don’t notice, do not pay attention, NOTHING IS GOING ON HERE. It was so potent, the indifference became an almost palpable wall that bracketed the rest of the class off.

Daeron’s bloodlust had so thickly wrapped around him that it had rooted him to the spot—he sat rigid as a corpse, insensible and black-eyed; sharp-set out of his mind, and a blink away from ravaging Sansa Stark and massacring the rest of the class in a mad frenzy. Aemond lunged at him, locking his arms around Daeron’s forearms and waist with a steel-crushing, unyielding grip, and hurled them both through an open window—all in the blink of an eye.

(A cold breeze swept across the back of Sansa Stark’s head, prompting her to turn around as her hair tickled against her nape and goosebumps pricked her skin. To her surprise, there was no-one behind her. The handsome boy who was sitting there—the one she took note of back in the cafeteria—had vanished, leaving his backpack and books behind.)

Aemond ignored Daeron’s furious growl and swiftly tumbled them down the hill, rolling out of sight from the school windows and prying eyes. He readjusted his grip, restraining him like he once did with unruly newborn vampires: arms crossed over the chest, wrists held in a vice-like grip. First order of business was to get him away from humans: Aemond towered over Daeron, so he hoisted him up into the air and hauled him beyond the treeline, dragging him deep into the safety of the forest at vampire speed.

As if sensing that his prey was slipping away, Daeron fought with wild desperation, his instincts heightened by hunger—the call of the blood turned him mindless and starved, and the beast in him was frothing at the mouth to get out and unleash chaos. Daeron strained to free his wrists, clawing at Aemond, and twisted his head in a frantic attempt to sink his fangs into his neck.

It was a futile struggle, of course; Aemond had wrestled with newborns far more unstable and ferocious than Daeron. There was a twisted irony in it all: Aemond had once been the commander of a ruthless vampire army that ruled the territory between Disputed Lands and Volantene Marches with a bloody fist. Now, he found himself navigating high school, decade after decade, and wrangling his siblings like an overqualified babysitter.

“Shhh, shhh. It’s okay, it’s not your fault,” he soothed his brother in a low, soft-spoken tone, comforting him with the cadence of his voice just as much as his gift. “But you need to calm down. Lykiri.”

He flooded Daeron with enough stupor and lassitude to fell an elephant, and the younger vampire quieted. Though he continued to growl and snarl, his struggling had weakened, fading into twitchy thrashes as his consciousness succumbed to the overwhelming fog of fatigue enveloping him.

“There you go. Breathe with me. In and out. In. Out. The fresh air will help clear out the girl’s scent from your system.”

Aemond paused to take stock of the emotions swirling around them, assessing the atmosphere and gauging for discordance. He had dragged Daeron deep into the forest, far enough from the school that the students appeared as distant, flickering pinpricks of light, making it hard to pin down individuals he was unfamiliar with. The general mood, however, was easy to ascertain.

Maester Helliweg’s class buzzed with confusion over Daeron’s sudden disappearance, but otherwise, all seemed normal. Helaena had no doubt brought Daenerys abreast of the situation and Aemond trusted Dany to handle everything back at school. Their sister was a master of deception, silver-tongued and quick-witted; she would concoct a plausible excuse for their abrupt departures.

Almost an hour later, Aemond got them to the edge of the Hightower property and it was then when Daeron finally stopped snarling. His eyes were still pitch black, but the hunger had subdued and his higher reasoning was returning.

“Aemond, what happened?” he asked softly, voice weak and brittle. He sounded as much a child as he looked; the densely packed, needle-like fangs clicking against one another as he spoke. “Did I… hurt her? I can’t remember…”

“Nothing irreparable happened. Don’t worry, bud. You held off long enough for me to get you to safety.”

Daeron closed his eyes, limp with guilt and relief. “I’m glad.”

You did good.

I’m proud of you.

These words were on the tip of Aemond’s tongue, but he swallowed them. Instead, he swaddled Daeron in a cocoon of comfort and carried him home.

✨✨✨

The Hightower House was a huge mansion—three stories tall and expansive, with a sprawling wraparound porch, flanked by white columns, and dramatic decorative details; lined with stained glass windows and adorned with prominent turrets, intricate trimming, and latticework. It was buried deep in the forest beside a riverbank and was surrounded by a grove of primordial cedars that shaded the entire acre of the meticulously kept front garden.

Under the vast sweep of branches, the gleaming black Barracuda was parked sideways at a steep angle, its tires left long grooves etched deep into the gravel driveway below—Dany was a hazard behind the wheel—and Aemond saw no sign of Alicent’s silver Volvo.

“Son!”

Criston had emerged from the thicket and rushed towards Aemond, scooping up Daeron from his grasp. He pushed the dark auburn curls out of Daeron’s face and began checking him for injuries.

“No, I’m not hurt,” Daeron replied to Criston’s thoughts, and tried to disentangle himself from the older vampire’s steely embrace, to no avail.

“We should get him fed,” Aemond interrupted. He scanned the surroundings, expanding his gift to sweep the area for intruders. “Where is Aegon?”

“Getting the blood.” Criston looked up, his eyes were whiskey-dark and full of worry. “Dany’s in the house, with Helaena. She filled me in the best she could, but, Aemond—what happened?”

“It would be easier to explain once everyone has gathered.” Aemond glanced at Daeron askance and considered immersing him under another dose of lethargy for good measure.

Daeron weakly glared. “Don’t you dare,” he muttered. “I’m not a child. I can resist it now.”

Aemond’s eye tapered with scepticism, though he remained silent. Daeron would read his doubts with his gift regardless. He cracked a whip of enquiry in the direction of the house and received a flare of disquiet being projected at him from Daenerys.

“Do not let him go,” he told Criston sharply, and without sparing either vampire another glance, sprinted towards the house.

He met Daenerys in the foyer. “I can’t get her to calm down,” she told him as she entered the room, agitation tightening around her like a nose. “Switch places?”

Aemond nodded and headed towards the sitting room. Criston might have been stronger than the rest of them, but Aemond would trust Daenerys to handle Daeron over him—she was faster and cleverer about fighting. Not that Aemond truly thought Daeron would be putting up much of a fight; he was still drained from the emotional tranquillisation Aemond besieged him with.

“Wait, hold on. Why do I smell venom?” Daenerys stopped him as he passed her and gently grasped his bicep. She took his hand, turning his arm over as she examined it. “Oh…”

Aemond flexed his hands, reflexively. His gloves and sweater were ripped to ribbons; his wrists and forearms slashed in several places from Daeron’s claws—venom leaked out like golden ichor. It was a rather gruesome sight.

“I’ll get a towel.”

Aemond shook his head. “Later. We need to see to Hel and Ron first.”

“Aemond, no—”

“This is nothing. These are not bites, there is no foreign venom. They don’t hurt.” That was a lie—they hurt quite a lot, but still felt better than being bitten by a long shot.

He smiled a little, trying to soften his tone. “I need your help where it matters most, sister. You’re the one I trust above all.”

Daenerys nodded reluctantly. “What should I do?”

“Feed him. Gorge him, actually. Pump him so full of blood he’ll feel sick at the thought of more.”

“Aegon is getting a barrel from the distillery. He should be back by now.”

“That’s good.” Aemond fixed Daenerys with a solemn look. “Dany, don’t let Daeron be alone. Keep an eye—and a hand—on him at all times. He’s more in control now, but he could still take off after her.”

Daenerys hesitated, still staring at Aemond’s ruined forearms. It was sweet, Aemond thought with fondness, how much she cared. She had a gentle heart. With a light touch, he turned her around and pushed her towards the double doors. He watched her go, before turning on his heel and striding deeper into the house.

The sitting room was as stylish as it was lavish; spacious and well-furnished, it was lined with warm grey wallpaper, embroidered with a crown of kingfishers nesting on blossoming peach-tree branches. Above, a giant crystal chandelier glimmered. Aemond found Helaena reposing on a chintz-upholstered méridienne chaise, by the ornately carved, elephant-bone fireplace.

His sister was picturesque. Her hair was soft and rich, the colour of burnt caramel; cut to her shoulders and choppy at the ends, but the unevenness was hidden well by the way it was curled into glamorous waves, reminiscent of a silver screen starlet. She favoured dresses in deep, sombre hues, and made out of delicate lace and airy chiffon, and adorned with silk ribbons. With her eyes gently closed and her hands gracefully folded in her lap, Helaena resembled a delicate porcelain doll; cherubic and ceramic—a figure of distant beauty, untouchable in her perfect artifice.

Aemond knelt down by her and gently brushed away the flyaways of the short, blunt fringe from her forehead. “Sweetling, may I help,” he asked, softly as he could. Helaena’s visions could be an emotionally violent affair.

A pained groove had etched itself between her brows and she let out a low moan. She turned her head a fraction and nuzzled into his open palm, seeking comfort like a hurt child.

“We’re okay,” he whispered, and traced her rounded cheek with the tip of his index finger, projecting affection and security onto her. “We’re all safe.”

Aemond imposed his will upon her: gradually and steadily conquering the landscape of her emotions. Her pain and grief were real, even if they were not based in reality, but nightmarish visions. Whatever she had seen had disturbed her greatly.

Changing her state too quickly and all at once, would only make things worse in the long run—especially since he suspected he’d have to leave the house soon as well. So he slowly chipped away at her despair and gently snuffed out the negative sensations she had experienced, as easily as plucking out stray threads from a tapestry. He could wreak catastrophes with his gift, or spin a thread as delicate as a spiderweb. Weaving positive emotions authentically took a subtler, nimbler hand, as well as a bit more care and attention.

Under his ministrations, Helaena relaxed; her body loosening and the pain bleeding out. He willed: she is at ease, she is content, she is comfortable, she is safe—and it became so because he manifested it. The whole process took no more than a few minutes and Aemond cemented the feelings with a fond kiss to her forehead.

He got to his feet, pulling away, and she opened her eyes, blinking dazedly.

“He’s going to do it again.”

Aemond frowned, perturbed by the realisation that he was not surprised. “I gathered as much. Any complications?”

“Yes. No. It depends. Too many paths have opened up.” A strange look came over Helaena, her gaze turning distant and unfocused. “She is inevitable.”

Aemond did not know what to say to that revelation. So, as always, he relied on what he did best—remaining silent.

He yanked his eyepatch off, stuffing it into a jean pocket, and massaged his forehead. Vampires could not get headaches, but he suspected the universe found a way to impose one on him regardless. “All right. Let’s gather the others and figure out a plan of action.”

“Try not to hurt anyone,” Helaena murmured off-handedly.

A brief flare of bitterness flashed in Aemond, his mouth twisting into something unpleasant. He would not hurt his family. He promised.

“Wouldn’t dream of it, sweetpea.”

✨✨✨

The tension in the room was palpable.

Daeron sat on a nineteenth-century leather chesterfield, wedged between Criston and Aegon on either side. Daeron had nestled himself against Aegon, resting his head on his older brother’s shoulder—which looked a little awkward since Daeron was a handspan taller. Aegon absentmindedly ran his fingers through Daeron’s hair, while Criston held a bag of warm deer blood in his lap. Every so often, he proffered it to Daeron, who sipped from a glass straw. Daeron seemed to have taken Aemond’s advice to surfeit on blood to heart.

Daenerys sat on an emerald-green velvet canapé couch, her hands resting in her lap, gaze steadily trained on the lit fireplace, her brow wrinkled in concentration. Out of all of them, her gift was the most esoteric—preternatural intuition. Unlike Helaena’s decision-driven clairvoyance, Daenerys’ second sight was predetermined. However, it was an elusive and nebulous power; unpredictable and uncontrollable. She had to wait for a premonition to strike, and even then it was a vague feeling, a suspicion, and not definitive knowledge.

Both of his sisters possessed extraordinary gifts. Both were difficult to deal with, for contrasting reasons: Helaena was imprisoned by her visions; Daenerys could not call forth her insights.

All gifts are a burden, Aemond reflected and watched as Daeron shifted uneasily. His brother was forever plagued to bear witness to others’ thoughts, condemned to uncover that which should not have come to light. Aemond himself was cursed to endure the relentless intrusion of emotions that were not his own; he would never not be privy to the truth buried in another’s heart—whether he desired to or not.

His gaze shifted to Helaena. She had reclined once more on the chaise with curved wooden legs and a high headrest; her bare feet were pointed towards the fire. She had a glazed look in her eyes, her expression had turned vacant—she felt far away and untethered.

Reflexively, Aemond blocked his surface thoughts from his brother, and let his mind wander: Was it him Helaena saw in the futures that would not be? Was it his violence that she was afraid of?

Kinslayer, his memories taunted him in Alys’ voice.

The sound of Alicent’s car zooming into the driveway at breakneck speed, snagged everyone’s attention. She was entering the house even before the engine had fully shut down.

She strode into the sitting room, heels sharply clicking against the marble flooring. The head of the Hightower family was not a tall woman, but she carried herself with a quiet air of self-assured authority that was born of privilege and shaped by nearly five-centuries worth of existence. She greeted neither her husband nor her children, and instead gave them all a critical inspection; her scrutinising gaze lingering on Daeron.

“I have been informed there had been…” she hesitated, giving an uncomfortable weight to the words, “an incident.”

“No irreparable damage,” Aemond reported when it became clear no-one else would speak up. He stood with his spine ramrod straight and his shoulders squared, his hands were clasped at the forearms behind his back; and he was slightly apart from everyone. Half-hidden in the shadow of the fireplace, his back was to the wall, and from that vantage, he had an unobstructed view of the entire room. “Though I suspect we drew some attention.”

Aegon snorted. “They probably think the town crazies are at it again.”

“Nothing that can’t be smoothed over,” Daenerys assured. “We can claim a family emergency and with a few well-executed thralls of the faculty, no-one would question it.”

“We’ll say what, exactly? Ron burst an appendix?”

Alicent’s eyebrows rose to her hairline. “And a medical emergency like that left no paper trail? I work at the local hospital, they’re going to ask me about it.”

“We can claim it was stomach flu,” Criston offered. “Human children’s immune systems tend to weaken around wintertime.”

As far as the school’s faculty was aware, Doctor Hightower’s children all had some sort of medical condition—Helaena suffered from absence seizures, Aemond had chronic migraines, Aegon was afflicted with gastroparesis and crippling haematophobia, and Daenerys was labelled with attention deficit disorder. Daeron, though rarely needing an excuse for his absences or odd behaviour, was conveniently cast as the “frail, sickly child” whenever the need arose and the family was quick to lean on that narrative.

“Glad that’s settled,” Alicent said, clasping her hands, and Aemond felt some of her worries dissipate. She turned to face her eldest daughter. “Helaena…”

“All is well,” she murmured moonily, absent-mindedly drawing patterns in the air with one hand. “There was a moment where I thought everything was lost, but we have safely passed that fork in the road—and that nightmare will never darken our path again.”

“Was it truly that grave?” Aemond inquired, his brow furrowing.

Helaena had peculiar eyes, almost silvery in their lucency, and her stare pierced into him with some unfathomable solemnity. “Yes. We have brushed dangerously close to death.”

The moment hung between them, leaden with indecision. She averted her gaze first, and Aemond sensed a wave of apprehension wash over her. He pursed his mouth and fought to suppress the sting of personal hurt, choosing instead to put his eyepatch back on, black leather sliding smoothly over cold skin.

Alicent perched delicately on an armrest of the canapé couch across from Daeron. She gently pulled Daenerys’ head into the curve of her hip and leaned forwards, placing her hand on her youngest son’s knee. She stayed silent, but Daeron caught her thoughts all the same—he shook his head, eyes darting away to avoid her gaze. Beneath her calm exterior, Alicent Hightower simmered with anxiety, and Aemond subtly nudged his brother with his gift.

Best get it over with, he projected his thoughts in Daeron’s direction. You know how she gets.

“I could not hear Sansa Stark’s thoughts…” Daeron began, his voice tentative and halting. “I was curious. I wanted to understand. I wanted to see her. It has been… a while… since I found a human interesting. I was excited.” Daeron flexed his fingers and curled them into a fist atop his thigh. “We share a Biology class. I remember sitting in my usual spot at the back. A fan was blowing, and she stepped in front of it… That’s when it hit me: her scent.”

At the memory, Daeron’s bloodlust surged, and venom gathered at the corners of his mouth, lips slick with a glistening red sheen. Aemond quickly enveloped him in a cool wave of tranquillity; smothering the fire of his craving beneath a heavy blanket of calm and taking the edge off Daeron’s struggle. Not for the first time, Aemond wished his power could reach deeper—quell the primal thirst entirely instead of merely soothing the storm it left in its wake.

“It crashed into me like a battering ram, and I was transformed in an instant.” Daeron continued, his face ashen and the bruises under his eyes were still pronounced, despite the gallons of blood he had consumed. “After that moment, everything blurred. I barely recall what happened next, but I vividly remember the thirst. It was unlike anything I had ever experienced. It scorched through me, burning away my rationality… my humanity… until only the all-consuming need for her blood remained.”

Daeron pushed himself off Aegon, attempting to rise to his feet, but Criston’s firm hand on his shoulder held him down.

His eyes were dark and kind, and they did not judge. “You did well, son.”

“I didn’t. I nearly slaughtered a class-full of innocent children. All because I was weak.”

Aegon recoiled, as if struck, but kept silent.

Daeron’s guilt and shame intensified. “Egg, no. I didn’t mean—”

“It’s fine.” Aegon lowered his gaze, a shadow of resignation crossing his face. “I know what I am.”

The family of vampires had gotten agitated, tension dripping off them like sweat, and Aemond observed them through a tapered eye. Aegon stiffened and Daeron shifted uneasily next to him, while Alicent’s fingers fluttered towards her eldest—the first vampire she had ever created—and grasped Aegon’s thin wrist. She leaned forwards and kissed his forehead, trying to convey something to him without words. After spending so much time around humans, the family had developed unmistakable tells: subtle movements that revealed their unspoken intentions.

Aemond felt a tumult of emotions swirl within him: he loved them; he envied them; he hated them for their weakness and himself for that hatred. He had always harboured a deep-seated loathing for weakness—whether it manifested in others, or in his own heart.

“It was not a regular thirst.” Aemond regarded them through a fan of pale eyelashes, his expression inscrutable. “I suspect Daeron had encountered his yachi norethmen*.”

Daenerys blinked, confused. “His peach?”

Aemond pursed his lips into a thin line, eye flickering with sudden intensity. “In Meereen, they call it: vāedar hen ānogar*.”

Alicent’s eyes widened in alarm. “A singer…”

“What’s that?” Aegon asked.

“Not a what—a who,” Alicent corrected gently. “It’s a term used in the royal court. They call these humans ‘singers’ because that’s what their blood does—it sings to certain vampires. They are appealing in the extreme sense. Their scent, their essence… it is utterly irresistible.”

She gave her youngest son a contemplative look, her expression softening. “Your father is right. You handled yourself better than anyone could have expected. Don’t torture yourself over what happened. You were not at fault for your loss of control. No-one could have anticipated that level of temptation.”

Daeron haltingly nodded and cast his eyes downwards, bracing himself for what came next.

“But you should leave, sweetling,” Alicent said, cupping his pale face between her cold hands. “A singer is an unprecedented temptation for you. You should go to Frostfangs—clear your head, get perspective. Mance would welcome you gladly for a visit.”

“Ygritte is gonna be thrilled,” snickered Daenerys quietly.

Daeron hung his head. “Yes, Mother. I understand.”

“I am not banishing you. This isn’t a punishment.”

To Daeron, it felt like one. He was younger than the rest of them; more vulnerable, too. Tractable and pliable in a way only a seventeen-year-old boy could be. Despite his gift of telepathy, he was mentally fragile and much more susceptible to emotional manipulation. Aemond knew it would take nothing to tip him over the edge of despair and self-loathing.

Instead of breaking him, Aemond flooded his brother with courage; filling him up until it overflowed and spilled out of him like a brimming chalice.

“I’ll go with you,” Criston decided. “I do not wish for you to be alone.”

Daeron shot him a faint smile, feeling relieved. His restraint to abstain from human blood was second only to Alicent’s, and the realisation that his control was fallible and he was just as vulnerable to slipping up as the others, had rattled him deeply. A bit of solitude to self-reflect and process things would do him good.

Criston and Daeron had grabbed the essentials and piled into the Jeep Wrangler (in an obnoxious grey-and-orange camouflage pattern Aegon chose)—it was massive, capable of driving off-road, and had fully black-out windows and UV-reflective windshield. Criston was speeding down the road and out of sight within ten minutes.

Helaena was first to leave. She smoothly got to her bare feet and wordlessly glided toward the sanctuary of her private boudoir. Aegon trailed closely behind, still out of sorts after Daeron’s careless remark. Aemond debated whether he should speak with his brother, before ultimately deciding to let Helaena handle him. Aegon did not need more voices pressing him about his control—or lack thereof.

“Aemond, sweetling, may I speak with you in my study?” Alicent called over her shoulder, already moving in the direction of her office. “Alone, if you please.”

Aemond exchanged a puzzled look with Daenerys. She tilted her head and shrugged. Aemond exhaled an amused huff, and dutifully followed the oldest vampire in the family to her lair.

Although the entire house was soundproofed, Alicent’s office was the only room truly impervious to vampire hearing. The walls alternated between rich, dark oak panels and peacock-green silk wallpaper, the contrast heightened by the flood of light from the tall, south-facing windows. Most of the space was taken up by two massive, towering bookshelves, the tops of which brushed the cornices, and a vast mahogany desk with its four legs carved into snarling lions. An old-fashioned medical bag sat atop the smooth green leather-top.

“Come,” Alicent called, her back to Aemond as she sorted out her supplies. “I’ll see to your hands.”

Oh. He had forgotten.

Aemond closed the door and unfurled his arms from behind, examining them. The claw marks gouged into his forearms were still there—not raw and angry as one might expect; instead the flesh around gashes had drained of all colour, fading to the lifeless pallor of a corpse. He barely felt the pain, he was so desensitised to it.

Alicent approached him slowly, unease welling up within her at the proximity to him, and inspected the damage. She clicked her tongue, and pulled off his ruined gloves before carefully cutting away the remnants of his sweater sleeves. With inhuman precision, she gently peeled the tattered fabric away from his wounds, where dried venom had crusted over, fusing the cloth to his pale skin, and wiped the lacerations with hydrogen peroxide, cleaning out the remnants of dirt and venom.

She took out a small, yellow jar from the depths of her bag, and Aemond was surprised to smell the familiar poultice of mustard seeds and myrrh. “You kept that?”

“You mentioned it aids with our regenerative process. I am a doctor, but I am a human one. You likely understand vampire physiology better than I do.”

“Not the technicalities,” he replied, strangely bashful.

Alicent shrugged. “Practical experience is invaluable.”

She unhurriedly applied the poultice to each wound, methodically wrapping them with clean linen bandages. Slashing injuries on a vampire healed slowly, as it was foreign venom from bites which accelerated the regenerative abilities. These would not scar—unless, of course, the attacker had coated their claws in venom prior to striking. Not that it made much of a difference for Aemond. What was another scar when he was already littered with them?

“Thank you for today,” she whispered, feather soft. Her head was bent low and eyes focused on her task.

“I only did what I had to.” I am holding up my end of the bargain.

Alicent looked up, fixing her eyes on his. They were dewy and dark as a fawn’s, and lacquered gold with their earnest warmth. “I mean it, Aemond. You are a part of this family as much as any of the other children. And I am grateful for everything that you do for us.”

He raised an eyebrow at that, but otherwise did not comment. He did not need Alicent to be his mother, the same way he did not need Criston to be his father. Aemond had parents, and he had outgrown the need for them early on, in both of his lifetimes. However, Alicent’s compassion was both her gift and her burden; and he feared that one day, it would lead to her doom.

She held an unwavering, steadfast belief that every heart possessed a spark of goodness. Even the hearts of monsters.

It was this conviction which allowed Aemond to remain with the Hightowers in the first place.

✨✨✨

“Low-key, what you’re doing is kinda creepy,” Daenerys drawled over the phone. “Personally, I wouldn’t want a two hundred-year-old geezer hanging around my bedroom window.”

Aemond rolled his neck, as if to work out non-existing creaks, and settled his back against the trunk of a massive rowan tree, stretching his long legs out in front of himself. Like all vampires, he could stay immobile for hours—perched in the greenwood thicket like a drizzled-on, deadly statue.

“Let’s not pretend you’re not in the pensioner club yourself. Have you forgotten celebrating your happy ninetieth nameday not too long ago? Or has dementia finally kicked in?” Aemond exhaled an amused huff. “Besides, I’m pretty sure if the human girl had to choose, she’d take one night of respectful surveillance from a safe distance over being violently murdered in her sleep.”

“First of all, it’s impolite to talk about a lady’s age, you cad,” she sniffed, affronted. “Secondly, he’s not doubling back to attack her.” Something about Dany’s tone suggested she was rolling her eyes.

“How can you be certain? Did you have one of your premonitions?” If Sansa Stark had the misfortune to be Aemond’s singer, no promise or consequence would’ve stopped him from sinking his teeth into her. Singers made a vampire obsessed. That’s just how they worked.

“Nah, I just know Ron.”

“Sorry, doll, that’s not a good enough reason. I’ll hang around Chief Stark’s house, keep an eye on his only daughter, and wait till Criston gives the all-clear once they made it to Mance’s. Better safe than sorry.”

“Fine, whatever,” Daenerys sighed. “Grab me a snack on the way back, will you? I need a pick-me-up. Egg roped me into helping with the yeast fermentation process, cause Criston isn’t here and Helaena does not care for the smell.”

Aemond hummed noncommittally and Daenerys ended the call without a farewell. He tilted his head back, fine droplets of rain slinking down his cold skin and peppering his hair. The air was rich and fragrant with the deep, earthy smell of wetted mud—potent and heady, and comforting in its familiarity. He had been born and bred in Summerhall, enwreathed by shadowed forests drenched in rain and besieged by thunderous roars of sultry summer storms.

The sky above was coal-dark and starless, and the night was illuminated only by a waning, topaz-yellow crescent. Aemond missed seeing the stars. He had learned them as a boy, for using stars as a guide was a surer and truer way to travel—names of the twelve houses of heaven and the rules of each; the seven wanderers sacred to the Faith of the Seven, and the known constellations. But it had not been until Vhagar entered his life did he learn the stories behind each constellation.

During quiet nights, when there was no killing or training to be done, he would stretch out the tall, cool grass and gaze up at the sky. Vhagar would settle beside him, and recount the tales behind the constellations she knew. (She would tell him everything she knew: things he asked about, and things he didn’t, and things she believed he needed to hear.)

He resolved to give her and Visenya a call soon, when a flash of pink in the corner of his eye caught his attention. Aemond canted his head to the side curiously, his long braid falling down one shoulder.

Sansa Stark lounged in an old cedar rocker on her bedroom balcony, having abandoned the overwhelming task of unpacking the mountain of cardboard boxes that occupied her living space. The slim lines of her long, lean legs and toned bare midriff were on full display in neon-pink bike shorts and a matching crop top; over which she was engulfed in a massive, unzipped white puffer coat. She had a graceful neck and she stacked it with dainty gold necklaces—the pendant of the longest dipped into the valley of her breasts, and the shortest one was a choker, crafted to into delicate flowers and adorned with pearls and garnets, encircled the hollow of her throat.

She was attentively painting her nails and animatedly talking into her cellphone, cradled between her shoulder and ear. “Lor, for the last time, Eastwatch is not the boonies. I’ll have you know it’s a rather thriving port town. I hear we get trade ships from Braavos and Morosh on the regular. No, not Lorath. I think there’s a customs disagreement. Yes. No. No. Oh, gods. Fine, yeah, it’s the sticks.”

She wiped a stray lock of hair out of her face with the back of her hand, mindful not to smudge the freshly painted nails, and blew out a resigned breath. “I heard people refer to the freefolk as…wildlings… on three separate occasions. And so casually, too! I know I shouldn’t expect the deep north to be as politically correct as King’s Landing, but, frankly, it threw me the heck off. Yeah. Of course I said something, it’s inappropriate. Freefolk are the indigenous people of this land, they get to set the rules regarding how they wish to be addressed. Lor, stop. No! That’s a dreadful thing to say, you heathen.”

She ducked her head and laughed, bright and sharp; mirth sparkling through in tiny, powerful bursts. “Bite your tongue! Eastwatch is a walking town, as the Seven intended cities to be. There’s a mom-and-pop general store on Main Street. Couple of shops, too. But, no, the closest shopping centre is in Queenscrown.” She nodded and hummed along; lazily crossing one leg over the other and resting her bare foot on the railing. “Babes, I won’t perish just cause I don’t have a mall to promenade through on the weekends. The change of pace will be good for me, I reckon. Less money will be spent, less things to worry about. No, I don’t think I’m in any danger of assimilating, believe me. I saw kids at my high school showing up in their pyjamas to class. I might be down to wear jeans and sweaters on a daily basis, but no way am I ever going to dress that casual.”

She examined work and lightly blew on her nails to speed up the drying process. “Enough about me and my super boring move to the edge of Westeros. Tell me how you have been. Did I miss anything exciting? When are you leaving for your trip to Rosby—” She stiffened in her seat and inhaled sharply, the tops of her breasts swelling over the scooped neckline of her top.

“No, she has not,” she replied in a clipped tone, her expression flat and unreadable, even as tendrils of irritation curled around her and her temper sparked. “Lysa made her feelings regarding me perfectly clear. She has my number, she has my email, she knows my messenger username. Hell, she has both the number to Brandon’s landline and his address, if she fancies posting a letter. She has a variety of means to contact me, but she does not. I will not be the first one to reach out, I will not stand for that.”

Suddenly, the fight had gone out of her and only bitter resentment simmered beneath the surface. “Loras, please,” she whispered in a small, tired voice. “I don’t want to talk about my mother.”

A nervous giggle bubbled out of her and she covered her mouth; she moved to bite on her thumb before remembering she had painted it, and shook the hand out. “Wow, what an abrupt topic change.”

“Yes, actually. There are cute boys here. Cute girls, too. I think the fresh, clean air contributes greatly to good health because this place is full of these rosy-cheeked, wind-swept youths straight out of an outdoor adventure catalogue.” She gave a laugh, light and lively; the tension bleeding out of her.

“There is one guy that particularly stood out. Pretty, in a boyish way; all pouty lips and bouncy auburn curls. Pale as chalk, though.” She made a sound between a sigh and a snort. “The whole family is unreasonably attractive, actually. Every single one of them has this insane, chiselled bone-structure. Boys and girls alike, their faces are ridiculously good-looking… Here’s the weird part: they have different hair colours, different noses and jawlines, yet somehow, they all still look like they’re cut from the same impossibly beautiful cloth. Inexplicably alike and incredibly different. I’d suspect plastic surgery, or genetic engineering, or something, but—”

A sudden gust of wind blew and lifted her long hair, it twisted in the air like a blood trail—and a mouth-wateringly delicious fragrance filled the air, assaulting Aemond’s senses: a rich, heady blend of honeysuckle and lily-of-the-valley and fragrant jasmine, softened by the lush scent of pear nectar and lingering, delicate orange blossom; and laced with an underlying sultry smell of warm caramel and baked vanilla of the lotion clinging to her skin.

Her scent was exhilarating and intoxicating—an ambrosial slice of gourmand heaven, with an earthy, sunsoaked sweetness to it that spoke of a rush of blood through the veins and a promise of a warm, pliant body. Venom pooled in his mouth. The dry ache in his throat flared up, bringing the hunger up a notch with sudden yearning, and a hollow craving gnawed a vale in his stomach: Aemond burned, athirst for blood.

Aemond could picture it—he would leap across the garden onto her balcony and casually take one leather glove off his hand, to drag a sharp claw down the side of the girl’s neck, nicking her necklaces so they would break apart and fall, and flood her system with enough dopamine that she would willingly stagger into his waiting own arms. Aemond would lean down and in, brush her hair gently away and turn her head for better access, and let his mouth slant against the arch of her throat. Rows of razor-sharp teeth would drop and smoothly slide into the flesh, and a dizzying pleasure of hot flow of blood would rush into him—finally satiating him in the way animal blood never could.

Sex would inevitably factor into the process. Because blood and sex always paired best together. As much as Aemond craved her blood, he desired her body, too. She would be warm and soft, willing and yielding, and perfectly content to perish in the embrace of a demon. He wanted to be selfish; to gratify his desire for the moment and not think of the repercussions. He wanted so much. He wanted—

Aemond struggled for self-command and quashed his dark desires. Body tense, Aemond put his palm between his teeth and bit down hard—he could not use his gift on himself, but pain always brought clarity to his mind. It smoothed the punch of want and while the hunger still simmered, the edge had dulled and the struggle eased. The fragrance in the air was already wilting, dulled by the onslaught of rainwater from above and scraped away by the blowing wind.

Aemond frowned, perplexed.

He had thought he had risen above this, that spending time with the Hightowers had changed him. The girl was not his singer. He had met his own singers—several, in fact—and he had not blinked twice before devouring them, gorging himself on their blood. Although singers were a toothsome sort and tended to smell luscious to any vampire, this one human girl should not have inflamed his instincts as she did.

No, this was something else. Something different.

Sansa Stark was a provocative temptation—a curiosity; dangerously intriguing.

Unfortunately for her, Aemond had always been drawn to dangerous things.