THE DRAGON QUEEN [ Jon Snow ]

IX.

CHAPTER NINE
[ the viper prince ]

SHE SHOULD HAVE GONE HERSELF. But no, she listened to her small council and sent a raven to Dacey Mormont instead, telling her friend how happy she was to hear that she is alive, and asking her to go to White Harbor on her behalf. And now they have not heard from Dacey since she arrived there. There was no telling if she was hurt or run off or even alive. Visenya's blood boiled at the thought.

"I'm going, Oberyn, and I will hear no argument about it," she told the prince as they walked together through the halls of Dragonstone.

"I know that you fear for your friend's life—," he argued, but before he could finish she swiftly cut him off.

"Dacey is my closest friend," she corrected, "she fought beside me in every one of Robb's battles, saved my life more than once. I owe her a debt."

"If you were to go and not return," he said as they entered a doorway, where she turned to face him and he followed suit. "It would be catastrophic."

"Then it is a good thing the Red Viper of Dorne is coming along to protect me," she said, a teasing smirk on her lips.

He returned her smirk, a soft breath escaping his lips as he took a step closer to her. Their chests nearly touched them, and he looked down at her with his dark brown eyes. "A very good thing."

He truly is handsome, she thought to herself, her next breath shuddering out of her. "You will come, then?"

"If it is the wish of my Queen." Seven hells.

"It is," she replied, "it is the wish of your queen."

"Does my Queen have any more wishes I can fulfill?" He asked, as his dark eyes devour her. When she did not reply, her heart nearly beating out of her chest, he brushed the hair out of her eyes, then used those same fingers to run down her cheek and asked, "has my Queen ever had a prince before?"

"I have never had anyone before," she confessed, her eyes flitting away from his, chin dipping down.

His fingers hooked underneath her chin and tilted her head back up, forcing her to look at him. "It would be my honour to be your first, My Queen."

And she would, were she someone else, but. . . "I can't."

"Why not?" He asked, not brash, but curious. She supposed not many people had ever refused him.

"I am in love."

"And who is this man that holds my Queen's heart?"