**yes, yes, I know this isn't Jon getting out of bed after doing the deed but let's pretend it is okay? Use the power of your imagination. Or sue me.**

➰Jon➰

It's the hunger that wakes me.

From a sleep far deeper than I can ever recall having before. So deep that when I open my eyes my mind feels split apart from my body and I have to wait a few moments until I feel it settle back inside, the world righting again. So deep had the sleep been it surprises me to see it is night still, and the muted sounds of the wedding feast continue somewhere below.

After my rough claiming of her, I'd kissed her mouth and her throat until I felt myself grow and harden inside her once more. Then I'd taken her again, slow and mindless, the only sounds between us the slick movement of skin against skin, the increase of our breaths. Daenerys had broken the thick silence first. Her fragile cry of pleasure a delight to my ears.

She fit me well. Too well. I had not thought to find a woman who fitted me as well as she had fit me. But Daenerys did.

As another cramp tears across my stomach, I turn my head to look at her. She sleeps soundly with her back turned, the fur kicked low to expose the curve of her spine which leads down to the rise of two pert cheeks. Skin an expanse of moon-kissed marble. Her hair spills over the pillow in a great pool of silver, each strand as though it had been woven by hand.

Had I survived the things I had only to lie here with her now? Only to claim her as my own? Had I cheated death more than once only so I could enjoy the unimaginable pleasure of this woman? It felt like it. My meaning felt connected to hers now. It frightened me.

Careful not to wake her, I slip quiet as I can from the bed and go to where my shirt lies discarded on the rug and pull it on. Then I place a few more blocks into the fire to ensure it lasts until dawn. A glance out the window tells me it is still some hours off yet.

From this new vantage, I drink in the sight of her.  Daenerys Targaryen. My Queen. My wife. One hand curled into a soft fist, the other beneath her pale cheek, her breaths easy and slow with the unburdened weight of sleep. The smooth rise and fall of her breath, the serene stillness of her body at rest, the faintest hint of a smile on her face as she dreams of whatever queens dream of.

I realise then what it is I hunger for. It is not stale bread and cheese.

When I pull open the chamber door, Daenerys' bloodriders stand off the wall to attention, eyeing me curiously. The unsullied commander who'd let me enter earlier is gone—the look in his eyes had been the same: mistrust, disrespect, warning. If I'd hoped it would change after taking her to wife, I had been mistaken.

The maid slouched on the stool a safe distance from the Dothraki guards blinks awake.

'Tilda, go to the kitchens and fill two plates with food and jug with ale.' I command her quietly. Already on her feet, she rubs the sleep from her eyes and nods.

'Yes, your grace.'

'And some wine for the Queen,' I add.

'Yes, your grace,' she repeats before scurrying off down the corridor in the direction of the kitchens.

As I go to close the chamber door I glance at the Dothraki, noting the small knowing glint the eye of the one closest to me. When I frown, confused, he merely smirks.

As understanding washes over me I swallow. Skirting my eyes from his somewhat sheepishly, I retreat back inside and close the door behind me.

Had the entire castle heard us? She had been loud... Feminine screams of pleasure which had felt like music to my ears at the time. This place was too small. Too many ears. Had Sansa heard too?

A rattle of discomfort rumbles over my chest at the thought of it. The sooner we leave this place all the better. It would be easier. On Sansa, and I. I no longer belonged here.

Daenerys continues to sleep soundly on the soft bed of furs, and I watch her for a few quiet moments, the sight of her filling me with an odd kind of contentment. Not unlike the feeling that came after a feast or after completing a difficult task; that feeling of satisfaction and fulfilment. Would each night by her side be like this one? Nights spent inside her as the hot air warmed our bodies. Nights spent falling asleep by her side, tired and spent.

Dragging my eyes from her I go to the window and stare outside at the deep cold instead. It had snowed again. Fresh powdery layers settled upon the ground and walls and the trees. Do dragons fly in the snow? Where were they now?

I glance curiously up at the black cloudless sky. She'd called them her children — the only children she'd ever have. Did they have a need then to be close to her? To stay by her side. Just as Ghost never roamed too far from the forests around Winterfell did they circle the skies above, never too far from their mother?

I long to see Ghost before we departed for the South. I could not command him follow me there, his home is here in the north. As mine had been. Before her.

Now my home was with Daenerys. I'd made vows and I planned to keep them.

Then, crackling over the muted winds of winter, I hear it. The howl of a wolf from somewhere deep in the thick of the forest beyond. A moment later, the distant call of a great beast high above.

I note then that I do not feel the cold from outside. My body feels warm for the first time in a long time, the dead man's chill that seemed to live inside me strangely absent. Had she spread her Dragonfire to me?

The soft knock on the chamber door comes a moment later.

Tilda moves quietly into the chamber and sets the tray down on the small table by the fire, stealing a glance at the sleeping queen as she does.

'Lord Tyrion, is he still in the great hall?' I ask her, soft.

Tilda nods. 'Drinking by the fire, your grace.'

'I need you to take a message to him for me. Then you may retire — I'll have no further need of you tonight.'

***

After washing the cold pheasant and stale bread down with the cup of ale, I cross back to the bed, removing my shirt again before climbing back under the furs with her. The hunger still gnaws at me, the true hunger this time, no longer drowned out by the need of my stomach.

Sliding close to her I settle my nose against her neck and inhale, where the soft scent of jasmine is most potent still. How was it that it lived in her skin? As though a garden bloomed beneath the flawless pale flesh.

Mixed now with another scent — my own — and the notion of it speaks to something base and primal I had not known I possessed. I kiss her softly there as my hand moves to her breast, and I take it gently in my palm, smoothing my thumb over the tender nub of flesh.

She moans for the first time, angling her head to allow me to kiss her deeper. I bury my nose in her hair, behind her ear, then kiss down the curve of her neck to bite softly against her shoulder.

As Daenerys moans louder the hunger between my legs grows, thickening, lengthening. Nudging it against the warm folds, I find she's still coated in the remnants of my claiming and the feel of it causes a surge of satisfaction to rip through me.

I had known it would be like this.

Had known it could be no other way between us. From the moment I saw her I'd known. Perhaps even before. On those nights where I'd longed for the warmth of a woman again. When I'd dreamed of a woman's touch, scent, pleasure. It had not been of Ygritte I'd dreamed. But another. It would be madness to think it had been Daenerys. For how could I have known then? How could I have known what I knew now?

You know nothing, Jon Snow.

I'd known. I'd felt it. Felt her. Warm like fire, soft like doeskin. The mind of a warrior and the heart of a queen.

As I push against her she arches her back in invitation and edges open her thighs.

'Please,' she pants, still caught in the snare of sleep. 'Jon... please...' What comes from her mouth then is a command and a word that I never thought to hear a queen say. It arouses and shocks me in equal measure and I can do little but obey her.

I lift her thigh and slide all the way into her, my mouth pressed against her neck as the groan of pleasure tears from my throat unashamed. It wakes her fully and she digs her nails into my thigh and pushes her body back against me while I move inside her.

'Gods , yes...' I groan.

She clenches around me then and begins to work her sex in practised, torturous, mind-numbing motions. As though a fist were gripping it from the inside. What sorcery was this? Where had she learnt such a... godless, magnificent... thing?

Daario. Her Khal. Her nobleman husband.

'Dany... I can't.... you have to... Dany.." I grip her hips to try and calm her, stop her. But I have no desire to stop her.  Amidst the soft gasps of pleasure, a soft laugh breaks from her throat and I still, holding myself inside her.

'Is something wrong?' I ask. Perhaps this was wrong? Was I doing this wrong? If felt too right to be wrong.

'No,' she says, urging me again, circling again. 'Nothing is wrong. I promise you... ah... yes.... nothing is wrong. Do not stop.'

I thread my fingers through her hair and pull her head back to kiss her, revelling in her open hungry mouth. Dany pushes her body back into me again and again as I thrust forward into her, growing used to the exquisite feel of her strange movements.

It's not long before she lets out the soft abandoned cry I was coming to know well. She grips the furs in one hand and my thigh in the other and trembles violently in my arms as she moans my name over and over again.

My own pleasure soon follows, turning my vision to white and my body boneless and spent, used by her in the most glorious of ways. I had experienced nothing like it. Nothing like her. Our hearts fast and wild, we lie silent for some moments before I slip out of her and settle onto my back.

Daenerys turns onto her side so that she's facing me, reaching out to stroke a tentative hand over my chest. I tense, expecting her to direct her touch to gaping ragged scar over my heart. When I look at her she smiles and I feel my entire body relax, the tiny sparks of flame softening the blood and bone. Let her ask me. Tonight I would tell her anything she wished to know. Tonight I would tell her everything.

'You called me Dany, again,' she says, surprising me. I can't tell how she feels about this but as her eyes are still soft I reason she isn't displeased.

'It felt... right.' I explain.

'The last person to call me that was my brother,' she says, looking down briefly.

I can tell how she feels about this because when she looks at me again her eyes no longer glitter: they're dull and hard.

'Forgive me. I did not mean to upset you — I won't call you it again.'

She shakes her head. 'It does not upset me. I like it. I always liked it — it was everything else he did to me that I did not.'

'He hurt you?' I frown. Something like fury simmers beneath my skin.

'Yes,' she says, simply. 'But he was the only family I ever had. And so I worshipped him. I thought he would save us. I thought he would take us home—going home was all I ever wanted, all I dreamed of. He promised he would make our enemies pay for what they had done.' Her voice is hard but it sings with sadness. 'But he was weak. He was no dragon.'

'Not like you.'

'I became what I had to, to survive. Without my dragons and my armies I would be just like everyone else.' There's a strength in how she says this, a noble acceptance.

'Dragons or no, you're not like everyone else,' I say.

It was not dragons or armies that made her what she was. She was starlight in an otherwise black sky. A flame in the dark. A dragon in a world of men.

Her eyes meet mine, rounded with emotion.

'Then let us consider this,' she says, playful. 'Would the King in the North have taken me to wife if I were merely a Lady born to some southern house?'

For some moments I pretend to consider this. 'If the King in the North had ever the fortune to look upon you, Lady-born-to-some-southern-house, there would be no other who would do for him.'

She blinks back at me, half-stunned I think. Then, regaining her composure quickly, she smiles a dazzling smile.

'Ah, but he could not simply marry whomever he pleased. His marriage would be an alliance, to strengthen his rule. A beautiful Dornish princess perhaps?" Just as Rhaegar Targaryen had done. Her voice is high like a girl's but her eyes are clouded with a hint of sadness. What did it mean that she'd cast me in her brother's role? The brother who had not had a chance to hurt her? 'What then?' She challenges.

I nod. 'Then I suppose he would do as he must... as his duty bid him. But he would dream always of the silver-haired maiden who stole his heart.'

Her mouth falls open a little as a blush spreads across her cheeks. She lowers her eyes from mine, shy, dark velvet lashes brushing soft against the pale skin.

There was no other more beautiful than her, none who had lived or would live. I was certain of it. Daenerys Targaryen was not fire and blood. Dragons and war. She was starlight and jasmine. She was lavender eyes and soft girlish laughter. She was sunshine and sadness. And in another life, she was the silver-haired maiden of songs and poems, stealing the hearts of men and kings alike.

Has she stolen your heart, crow?

No. My heart is broken. Dead.

You know nothing, Jon Snow.