Work Text:
“I thought good guys get to be happy,I'm not happy, I am poison in the water and unhappy.”
Hard Times- Ethel Cain.
“They are planning to wed me to Rhaena,”
Aemond stops dead on his track, the air suddenly knocked off his lungs. He stares at Lucerys like he expects the boy to giggle and say he was merely jesting.
The room is as cold as is silent.
“She is a beta too, they reckon is a perfect match,” Lucerys continues, fingers dancing on the window sill as he glanced back at his uncle. Waiting for an answer, a reaction, for the smallest of semblances of frustration or anger, “They want the wedding to take place sometime in the coming moon.”
“They?” Aemond lets out, barely a whisper, so soft it might have been carried away by the wind like a speck of dust.
“Surely you don’t expect me to want such a thing?” Lucerys said, voice a pitch higher than usual, he turned around and there was offense written all over his face, “Have I ever given you any inclination I would ever want anything other than this?”
“And what exactly do you expect me to do? You have a legacy to keep alive, a promise to uphold, you need heirs and Rhaena will be a good wife to provide you with them,” Aemond said, voice louder and rougher than he intended to, “This dream of ours, has always been a dangerous trifle, we have swayed way too far from our duties. It seems it’s about time we woke up from it.”
Aemond hears the slap before he feels it, it stings for a moment then it fades into numbness.
He stares bewildered at Lucerys, the boy is shaking, his fists tight to his side, and his face red with tears falling slowly down his cheeks.
For a moment Aemond almost feels like Luke might still be an omega, his omega.
Oh, how they had hoped so, Aemond recalls a twelve-year-old still unpresented Lucerys praying each night for the next morrow to present as an omega. “It might yet happen” he had told the boy as he laid his crying face on his lap, so Luke kept praying and praying until his knees bled from kneeling at the mother’s altar.
But life had been cruel to them, and with a wicked grin it had stabbed its sharp nails into their chests to remove that unrelenting glimpse of hope, for Lucerys was a beta.
“You dare call our relationship a ‘trifle’, I knew alphas were cruel and I knew you to be it too but I have never expected you to be this cruel to me,” Lucerys sniffled, wiping his face hastily with the sleeves of his doublet, both the fabric and the movement so rough it leaves behind angry crimson lines.
Aemond aches to reach the boy and soothe the newly formed wounds, yet he finds himself frozen in place, unable to move an inch.
“You would let me go, watch as I sail away and wed another. Was this whole thing truly just a farce? You have made a mockery out of me in retaliation for your eye.”
Lucerys keeps shaking, he looks smaller like that, like a little boy despite being on the cusp of manhood. Aemond has to stop himself from reaching out to his nephew and envelope him in his arms and keep him there.
Lucerys is not his to hold anymore if he ever even was, his nephew is to be a wedded lord, and he's to breed heirs into his beta cousin’s womb.
Aemond has no place in his life anymore, the part he held for so long slipping through his fingers like wine in a cup with holes.
“All those nights you held me, everything I gave you, was it all just a scheme? I gave you my heart and my body, I offered myself in a way no beta man should ever do! Was it all just to watch me crumble and break at your feet? Does it feel good? Do you breathe better now, knowing happiness will always elude me for I have placed it in your hands,” Lucerys sobs as he falls to his knees, head hanging between his hands.
It’s an odd feeling, the one that fills Aemond’s chest, he has seen the boy naked and had been inside his body more times than he can measure, yet seeing him like this is too intimate. He wishes to run his fingers through the soft curls as he did every night they’ve shared, to hold his nephew’s face to his neck and whisper soothing words.
But no words could mend what’s been broken beyond repair.
He swallows and looks away from the wailing boy, it’s for the best, he tries to convince himself. Lucerys has a duty he must attend to, and Aemond is nothing but a distraction from his obligations as the heir of Driftmark.
It’s for the best, he repeats in his head as his fingernails dig into his palms drawing blood.
It’s for the best, it’s for the best, it’s for the best, is it? If it causes Lucerys such distress, is it really for the best? He stares at his nephew, completely broken, devastated, and forlorn. It tears at his heartstrings, opening his ribcage from the inside to rip his beating heart into chunks, he can almost taste the blood, his mouth dry and swollen with unsaid words.
“You need heirs, Driftmark…,” Aemond starts to repeat, but the words feel too heavy to leave his mouth, he seldom noticed he had bitten his tongue.
He inhales deeply and tries to continue but the sound of Luke’s humorless laugh stops him from even trying.
“I am here, asking you to take me away because I don’t care about Driftmark, not when it gets in between us like this. Can you be honest for once uncle? To both of us. It’s it truly me needing an heir and my future seat at Driftmark that’s stopping you, or is it that you’re ashamed that I’m not an omega and that I will never be able to give you heirs?” Lucerys whispered sadly as he scrambled to his feet to face the alpha.
“I have no desire for heirs, what would they even inherit from me? Lucerys, I’m nothing more than a second son and a fourth child of the king. I’m not even a spare, I’m so far down the line of succession your dragon might as well have more to its name than I do. I have never desired an omega, I have only ever wanted you,” Aemond said, feet moving on their own accord towards Lucerys.
“Is it because I can’t take your knot? I know it hurts you when we couple and you have to finish outside because I’m not supposed to take it. But,” Lucerys swallowed, cutting the distance between them and cupping Aemond’s marred cheek in his hand, “I’m willing to try, I’m not made of glass, I can take the pain if it will please you.”
Aemond lifted his hand to cover Luke’s with it, leaving a kiss on the pale wrist before sighing, “It does not pain me so badly to have my knot outside of you, I wouldn’t want to risk your life because of it, I enjoy our couplings nevertheless.”
“If taking your knot could kill me then I don’t mind, for I’ll die yours,” Lucerys said softly, lips ghosting over Aemond’s, his hot breath sending waves of excitement down his spine.
“Don’t be foolish, if you were to die what would it be of me? You speak of my own cruelty yet you would be so cruel to leave me alone with the ghost of you haunting my every breath. Do you think I could live with myself if I were the reason your life was cut short? I would descend to madness if that’s not already the place I reside.”
Aemond takes his nephew’s hands and covers them in kisses, asking forgiveness for a sin he’s yet to commit, he kisses every vein on the delicate wrists if only to feel the blood still flowing through them. His lips hover over that specific vein where he feels Luke’s heart thumping, like a war drum calling for troops.
“I want your knot, I want your bite. I will want everything you have to offer, no matter how big or small, how painful or how pleasurable. I will even want you even if you lose that last thread of sanity that’s keeping you from tearing my body apart,” Lucerys said, determination spilling with every word, leaving no room for arguments.
Stubborn as they come, his lover is. It was one of the reasons why when he was yet to present they had assumed he’ll be an omega just like his grandmother. That fiery yet delicate stance is a telltale of an omega of Targaryen blood.
It seems as from every angle, Lucerys was born to break the moldings built by men with faceless names long before they were born.
Aemond had never expected to be an alpha with a beta mate, it wasn’t the way of things. He was supposed to remain unmated until a storm came brewing and he could be useful for once and grant his family allies through his mate.
Lucerys has no idea what his words cause in Aemond, heartstrings entangling as the weight of the world sits atop his chest. The beta has no clue what renouncing his title and inheritance for someone like Aemond would cause.
Someone like Aemond, broken, rough with only sharp edges.
Aemond carefully kissed every finger on Lucerys’ hand, wanting to leave a trail of himself on that unmarred skin that he so often sought to soothe a pain unreachable, invisible, and unspeakable.
“I’m afraid I’m not worthy of you leaving your whole life behind. But I can’t seem to stay away from you, the mere thought of giving you up tears me from inside like a hot blade,” he whispered, lips fluttering among Lucerys’ veins, feeling the soft thumping of his nephew’s accelerated heartbeat.
“That’s for me to decide,” Lucerys declared, chin up and watery eyes determined, “Will you be able to take it? The aftermath? Choosing a beta when you’re an alpha, especially one such as yourself…”
Lucerys had trailed off, knowing he had said something that might open that forbidden chest of wonders.
“Such as myself? As in?” Aemond questioned, eyebrow raised as his eyes lifted up to focus on Lucerys.
“Proud, handsome, smart, strong,” Lucerys left out a small grin at the last word and continued, “For sure you’re aware you are one of the seven kingdom's most sought-after alpha bachelors.”
Aemond straightened immediately, hands lifting Luke’s chin softly to force the beta to look at him, he sighed as he rested his forehead against his nephew’s.
“I have told you, there is nothing out there for me to give up. Nothing that could ever matter more than you, anyway.”
Lucerys shivered, his hands scrambling to take Aemond’s face between his hands as he crashed their lips together.
The kiss was desperate, their lips clinging to each other as if they were drowning men and in their mouths, they held the air they’d been missing.
They separated after a while, lips swollen and shiny red with spit. Lucerys traced Aemond’s features with feather-like touch, like one touches something precious, valuable. Aemond had never felt such love and devotion, his own mother hardly ever showed them any sort of affection that didn’t feel like it was a chore for her.
How could he ever give up the one thing that made him feel like he was worth something.
Fuck Driftmark, fuck whatever anyone else thought, what do they know about them anyway?
Before Lucerys he had been so alone, he had started the affair with cruel intentions. To hurt the boy and leave him a broken mess that no one could ever repair.
He had planned it for years, he would sit and enjoy the show as Lucerys Velaryon crumbled like stone under a dragon’s foot. He had planned it all, except falling in love with the boy.
Now he was here, ready to give up his whole life for him, for the promise of a new life with the boy he once dreamt of harming in ways he would not even dare speak today.
“Aemond…qybor…” Lucerys whispered, his hands already traveling down Aemond’s neck and further below.
Aemond kissed his forehead, then his cheeks, his nose, until he settled himself in the crook of Luke’s neck.
He inhaled as he buried his nose in his neck, betas are supposed to be scentless but to Aemond he smelled like fresh lemon water, of sea salt and fire.
“Bite me, please, claim me. Show the whole world I’m yours and only yours,” Lucerys begged, voice cracking as his hands steadied themselves on Aemond’s waist, “I can take it, I want to, mark me as I have marked you.”
Aemond’s pupil expanded with hunger, he felt that rush of adrenaline boiling through his veins as Lucerys bared his neck for him.
“The mark you left on my face it’s not as deep as the one you imprinted onto my heart, I fear,” Aemond growled, teeth aching to sink into the supple flesh offered to him like freshly ripened fruit.
He licked the part where the mating bite should be, the salty taste almost immediately becoming addictive on his tongue. He felt Lucerys shivering under his touch, he squeezed his arm to reassure him and felt him give a small nod.
And he bit, he sunk his teeth deep into the flesh and immediately felt the gush of blood fill his mouth. It tasted oddly sweet, Aemond was no stranger to the taste of blood, the taste of iron lingering on his tongue after some of the particularly hard training sessions.
He licked the blood off the bite and kept sucking to help the wound close faster, he could hear Lucerys sighing and finally separated from the bite to look at his now mate.
Lucerys looked a little paler, the normal rosy coloring of his cheeks now faded.
But he was smiling with tears in his eyes, he tucked a lock of Aemond’s hair behind his ear and kissed him softly.
“My mate, my alpha,” he murmured against his lips.
“Are you feeling okay? Won’t you like to lie down for a moment,” Aemond said, his hands drawing soothing circles on Luke’s lower back.
“I’m feeling better than ever and I would love to lie down and take your knot, you have to see our mating through, alpha.”
Sense should have told him that a beta like Lucerys would likely not be able to take his knot, especially after just experiencing the bite.
But sense had left the moment he tasted the sweetness of Luke’s blood.
Aemond lifted him up as he kissed the mating mark, the remnants of blood drying and sticking to Luke’s skin like sweet honey. Lucerys wrapped his legs around Aemond’s waist and grabbed his face to kiss him fiercely, his hands tangling on his hair as he deepened the kiss.
Aemond’s hands started roaming over Luke’s body, feeling every curve and contour and finally setting his hands just below his plump ass.
Lucerys sighed into the kiss as he started unfastening Aemond’s doublet, peeling the fabric from his body with hungry speed.
Aemond took them both to the bed and slowly laid Lucerys down, even though his mind was foggy with desire and the need to consummate their mating he could not help but stare at the state of his nephew.
The rosy color had come back to his skin, a healthy blush adorning his cheeks and nose. His hair was tousled and messy, his clothes were almost all ripped from his body, and the dried blood on the bite only made him look all too much delectable.
He made quick work of the rest of their clothes, not even caring where they landed as he threw them away. He caressed Luke’s body from the bite to his sensitive nipples, pinching the pink nubs, making Lucerys groan and arch his back in pleasure. He trails his hand all the way to Luke’s cock, warm and flushed red, with pearls of white beading at the head, he gives it a soft yet firm tug eliciting a wanton moan from Lucerys.
Slowly he made his way to his hole, he grabbed the oil he always kept on the bedside table and poured it into his fingers and some directly into the pink opening.
In no time he already has two fingers deep inside Lucerys, working him open, getting him ready for his knot. The first and only knot he would ever take.
Lucerys bites his lips and ruts against the fingers as they grow in quantity, two become three, and three become four.
“Look at you, so open for me, ready to break apart on my knot,” Aemond says roughly, teeth grazing at the bite mark as his free hand pulls at Luke’s curls to have him baring his neck, “Such a whore for me, I will keep you on my knot for days just for you to get molded to it.”
Lucerys moans loudly, rising his ass to chase more of that friction that drives him mad with lust and love, he whines pathetically when Aemond removes his fingers from his hole.
Aemond then grabs Lucerys by the neck and changes their position, forcing his face into the mattress, Lucerys whimpers as he raises his ass to grind it against Aemond’s hard cock.
“Please, alpha, give me your knot,” he sobs as Aemond enters him with one harsh push.
Aemond thrusts into him like he’s been wasting time, hard and rough. He keeps his hand on Luke’s back as it curves like a vase under his touch. He hammers into Lucerys at an unrelenting pace, all muscles and strength, red hot passion grows between them at the pit of their stomachs.
Aemond feels the way his knot starts to grow and moves his hand to Luke’s hips and grips them with bruising strength. Aemond thrusts into Lucerys with a ramped-up pace, Lucerys cries out below him, muffled screams by the pillow still loud enough for Aemond to hear.
Lucerys rides a tidal wave of pain and pleasure as he feels himself being stretched out around Aemond’s cock, he feels like he’s being torn open at the seams in the most delicious of ways.
It hurts, yet it feels so good, it feels like the end of the world and paradise simultaneously, he feels his own orgasm spreading like dragon fire, his mind is foggy and tortured it feels like being underwater.
“Lucerys, I’m…my knot is…” Aemond barely managed to let out as he pushed further and his knot locked in.
Lucerys’ orgasm consumes him, blinding red overcomes his vision, and feels scalding fire bursting all around him. He spills between his stomach and the mattress the moment he feels the knot stretching him so wide and filling him so well.
Aemond kisses along his spine as the knot keeps them close, fluttering like the wings of a dragonfly, “Are you all right, love? You are doing so well.”
Lucerys can’t even form words, mind too gone with pleasure to react, he nods lightly as he feels Aemond caressing his lower back and feels his eyes dropping with soreness and tiredness.
Aemond seems to notice it as he softly repositions them, his sweat-licked chest glued to Luke’s own sweaty back, his arms surrounding his waist and he leaves one last kiss to the mark, “Rest now, it’s done.”
Lucerys lets himself be lulled to sleep by the sweet feeling of comfort and protection that Aemond’s embrace provided him, he snuggles into the warm chest as the world fades to numbing black.
The next time Lucerys opens his eyes, he knows that some time has passed, there is a throbbing pain in his ass, and his back but he feels so empty without Aemond inside him.
He turns around in the bed and realizes he has been cleaned up, he giggles at the thought of Aemond cleaning him up while he was asleep. He nuzzles into Aemond’s chest, feeling the warmth radiating from his mate soothing some of the aching sensation.
Aemond shifts and opens his eye to look at Lucerys, “Hello there, my mate,” he mumbled into his hair as his arm racked on his waist.
Lucerys giggled again and hid his face in Aemond’s chest, enjoying the boneless sensation as Aemond holds him close to his thumping heart.
Aemond took Lucerys’ face between his hands and kissed him deeply but gently, overflowing with love and affection.
“Are you ready to face our families? You, you don’t regret it, do you?” Lucerys asked, voice suddenly tiny and breathless.
“I will never regret you or whatever I’ve done for you,” Aemond said as he kissed his nose, “I have been ready to face whatever fate awaits for us beyond these walls since the moment you begged for my bite.”
Lucerys rolled his eyes playfully, “I didn’t beg!” he protested, “And we’ll do it together, always together.”
“Together.”
—
When they presented themselves as a mated pair to their families, Queen Alicent almost fainted, her face completely drained of all color as her usually perfect posture faltered.
Soon, her ill complexion changed to flushed anger at the sight of her son holding the beta who had maimed him.
Princess Rhaenyra merely stood open-mouthed as she seemed to try and make sense of the unexpected display in front of her. Next to her, her husband sighed as he ran a hand through his face.
“My son has been tricked! This can’t be! It shan’t be! An alpha of royal blood like Aemond can not be mated to a beta!” Alicent blustered, her hands balling into fists on the table, “Surely, my King, there must be a way to annul such a grotesque attempt of a mating.”
“My son is a beta of royal blood, a beta with a previously arranged betrothal. I won’t allow such slander to fall upon him, you have spilled enough of your poison at court but I won’t allow you to do it in front of me or my children,” Rhaenyra snarled, her alpha scent immediately souring which made Queen Alicent cower herself even if against her will.
The King merely had fixated his gaze on the newly mated pair, his eyes glazed over with ghosts of the past that came back to haunt him. He slowly raised his hand to stop the two women from taking their discussion further.
“Aemond…my son,” he wheezed, words slurring out as he took deep breaths to continue, “Have you decided to mate the Prince Lucerys out of your own volition?”
Aemond raised his chin and tensed his jaw, he avoided the teary-eyed face of his mother as he addressed the king, “Yes, my king. The decision was but my own and I plan to stand by it. The mating has been consumed by both bite and bedding.”
Alicent let out a choked-up gasp and Rhaenyra groaned loudly, their combined soured scents clogging the air.
The King nodded and taking another breath he directed himself to Lucerys, who was clinging to Aemond’s hands, “Lucerys, my grandson, have you decided to mate with the Prince Aemond out of your own volition?”
Lucerys swallowed hard as he stepped in front of Aemond, “My king, it was me who came up with the idea. I am aware that between alphas and betas, there can’t be progeny. And for that, I am ready to abdicate my right to Driftmark to my brother Prince Joffrey Velaryon.”
The King nodded weakly as he sighed, “Then it is done, I do not see reason why I should annul this mating. Driftmark will continue to pass on the Prince Lucerys Velaryon and his heir will be whatever child his brother Prince Joffrey Velaryon has.”
“My king! You can’t allow this! An alpha and a beta? That’s blasphemous! It’s unnatural,” Queen Alicent cried out, picking at her nails as tears streamed down her face.
“We are Targaryens, Alicent. I don’t expect you to understand but I expect you to respect our nature. Queen Visenya herself was a beta mated to an alpha, I do not see why we should not accept this union,” The king declared between long strangled pauses, then he looked straight to Rhaenyra and continued, “I will not make the same mistake twice.”
Rhaenyra took a step back, her hold on Daemon’s hand growing tighter, she looked at her son and smiled softly, “Sweet boy, is this truly what you want?”
Lucerys kissed Aemond’s hand and let go of them for a moment, then slowly walked to his mother and took her hand in his, “It is, mother, this is all I want. This is the one thing I truly ever wanted, you know I don’t even want Driftmark. But this one thing, oh mother, let me have this one thing,” he begged, eyes brimming with tears as he spoke.
“Then it is done, my sweet, you have your mother’s support,” Rhaenyra said and left a soft kiss on Luke’s temple then looked at Aemond, “Brother, I trust you with one of my most precious jewels, I confide that you will love and respect my son in every aspect as his mate.”
Aemond swallowed thickly and nodded, “I will do nothing but honor and love Lucerys, until my dying day.”
Lucerys smiled brightly and returned to his mate’s side, lifting himself on his tiptoes to leave a kiss on his cheek. Aemond blushed a healthy red, not yet accustomed to public affection, having never seen it with his parents.
Queen Alicent sighed in defeat and hid her face between her palms, “Princess, I suppose we have a wedding to plan together,” she said, a straining smile adorning her teary face.
“That we do, my Queen,” Rhaenyra replied, her scent slightly sweeter than before.
If anything else was said between them it’s uncertain, for Lucerys and Aemond had retreated to the chambers they will now share. Luke’s bite still needed time to heal and time with his mate would aid him, his body was still adjusting to the sudden changes it now was faced with.
“Together, always,” Lucerys said as they entered the chambers, resting his face on Aemond’s shoulder.
Aemond lifts Luke’s chin with a finger, to make him look at him, he let a chaste kiss on his lips.
“Wouldn’t have it any other way.”