Terms of Endearment │Part I: The Princess and the Rogue

Chapter 14: Fury

THE ROGUE

Luring you in is easier said than done.

He finds you when and where he can, your seemingly untraceable movements easily resolved through quick conversation with Harrold Westerling, none other than the Lord Commander himself. A stolid, serious man, he'd taken little issue to his Prince's request, providing Cole's whereabouts with an ease that speaks to the Kingsguard's acclimatisation to your routine. He does not particularly enjoy searching you out by means of the Stormlander knight, but needs must.

Daemon does it all, too. He spends what time he is able in your company, taking care not to press his suit too forcefully and scare you off; he regales you with tales of his nobler deeds and escorts you to meals with your family; he unearths his old stockpiles of accrued riches and selects the few among them he thinks you might like; he plies you with adulation and declares you to be the fairest maiden in all the known world, the envy of every creature fortunate enough to lay eyes upon you. He gives this endeavour all the effort he possesses, more so than any past conquest, for you are infinitely more valuable than some cheap fuck, and he is so sure that you will receive his attentions with a sweet smile and a ready spirit, all too willing to take the hand he is silently offering with every look and every word, urging you to accept him and—

And nothing. It drives him mad. So distracted is he that he begins to draw further and further away from his old associates, declining their entreaties wherever he might. The most recent occasion had left a rather sour taste in his mouth.

"Come on, man! Where is your head tonight?" Dargood asks, leaning across one of his many acquaintances to yell at him over the din. "You've not said a word all evening!"

Daemon lifts the tankard and takes a lengthy draught. "Ah—perhaps you bore me, then." A wan smile curves as their gathered companions roar with laughter.

Truthfully, he's been avoiding the lot of them; they desire little else than to drink and fight and fuck. While his taste for such pastimes hasn't exactly waned, his enthusiasm has taken a great blow. He can only presume it has something to do with you, blasted tempting girl you are. Each time he resigns himself to one of these outings—each time he must playact at interest in the whores Dargood parades before him in yet another reputed establishment—all he sees in his mind's eye is your face, wounded disappointment clouding your beauty and transforming it into something haunted and sorrowful.

Kettleblack snorts. "Of course he's bored, what with his Delight waiting for him in the Keep! Probably wishing he was back in her right now!"

"Or is it his Delight in that shithole that he's craving?" Hollard asks. The reminder of the whore—of that embarrassingly public affair in which he'd shouted your name in a fucking brothel, of all places—churns in Daemon's gut.

He looks suspiciously towards Dargood, who shrugs innocently. Dargood had been the only one to pay attention as the whore had led him away and up the stairs; and, when he'd lurched from that shabby chamber after spilling himself like a green boy, he'd come across the other man loitering in the hall outside, expression alight as though he'd just learned some great secret.

He'd have to impress the importance of silence upon his longtime comrade a little more forcefully, it seems.

"Whatever will he do—two silver-haired lasses ready to spread their legs for him?" One of the men whose name he cannot recall grins, revealing his missing front teeth in all their hideous glory. Eyes glittering meanly, he adds, "Who has the time?"