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His eyes were locked on her face as she chewed a bite of honeyed duck. For all that the meat was rich and tender, it grew sour when Alicent saw how his smile took on a sharp edge.
She took heart in the new table she commissioned some weeks earlier. (“It looks as though you’re about to confess your sins to a septon,” Viserys had complained when he saw it in her chambers. “Is the partition truly needed?”. She simply asserted that it pleased her to look on her dinner guests in the light of the Seven, and that was that.) Through the center of the seven-pointed star wrought in silver that separated their sides of the table, Lord Larys watched her closely. Alicent swallowed her duck, and wondered if the motion brought too much emphasis to her throat.
“I have news, Your Grace,” he said, meekness dripping from his voice. Once that had seemed its natural inflection; Alicent knew better now.
She resisted the urge to bring her fingers to the seven-pointed star that rested in the hollow between her collarbones. Alicent held herself back from any temptation that might bring undue attention to her neck, safe as the symbol kept her from him. “Tell me.”
Larys’ eyes brightened as they always did when she gave her consent. He leaned forward with his elbows on the table as though they were exchanging petty gossip. “Prince Aegon was seen in his usual brothel three days past. The girl he lay with, however, was new.”
Alicent sighed, dropping her head to face the table. “Much as I wish it were otherwise, Aegon’s lechery is hardly new knowledge.”
“It is not the location that should interest you, Your Grace, but the girl.”
Alicent’s throat constricted, and she looked up. “Is she with child?” She knew that it would be impossible to know so soon, but she had ordered too much moon tea of Grand Maester Orwyle of late to take the possibility lightly.
“A spy, my queen,” Larys said lowly, “For the White Worm, I can only imagine.”
It was not what she had been expecting, and the knowledge that the girl had likely been groomed for the purpose of seducing her son (though to what end, she did not wish to know) disturbed her. Sympathy for the girl lit itself in her chest, fighting against the defensiveness she felt for Aegon. She gritted her teeth, deciding against her better judgement for mercy. “Well, she will have to be paid and seen elsewhere before she can make use of whatever—“
Larys interrupted her with a gentle but pointed cough. “The spy has been dealt with, Your Grace. You will find that she will not want for payment.”
Alicent breathed out. It was a sigh of relief, yes, but also one of guilt that Larys had once more bloodied his hands to keep himself vital to her. Alicent allowed herself a moment of bare gratefulness that the threat to her son’s succession had been thwarted before the fear sank in. She knew what was expected of her next. “You have done the crown a great service, my lord,” she told him, her spine going cold as his eyes melted into open want.
“It is my most earnest desire to serve.”
Methodically, Alicent took the napkin from her lap and folded it, placing it over her near-empty plate. She stood, stepping behind her chair and tucking it neatly beneath the table. Her motions were wooden as she walked to the couch she would sit on, speeding up slightly once she had passed the table — she misliked turning her back to him. When she sat, she hiked up her skirts very nearly to her buttocks, holding them at the tops of her thighs and gathering them beneath her so she had enough room to open her legs just wide enough for him to sit between them. It was a mechanical gesture; she had no desire to draw this out for any longer than she must.
Alicent began to roll down the stocking on her right leg, grounding herself in the feeling of the cotton sliding down her calf and over her foot. She did not truly know if she was compelled to do this (for she knew that that was among his gifts, to compel), but she found herself too conflicted by the possibilities to ask him, even if she knew he would respond truthfully should she ask. To be compelled would remove her own accountability for what was to come, leaving her soul light and innocent — she almost preferred it that way.
He watched her as she folded her stocking and placed it neatly on the arm of the couch. When Alicent looked down at her lap, he came to her.
She did not like to watch his approach ordinarily, but this time she did. Larys carried on the farce of stooping meekness even in private — she did not know if it was for her benefit, to soothe the restless terror in that squirmed in the center of her chest when she saw him in order to make her better like him, or if it was merely a habit leftover from the days before he became the parasite he was now. She knew the moment he saw that her eyes were upon him, for he smiled. It was a gentle, closed-lipped thing that brought a tremor to her fingers.
For Lord Larys to kneel was a process embedded with labor. It was clear that this was not something he did outside of his time with her (for what other purpose would he have to kneel? Certainly he did not visit the sept), for he was ill-practiced at it. He manually shifted the foot encased in its iron boot before dropping to his knees with a speed that looked painful, though he did not flinch. Hardly was he on the ground for a moment before he took Alicent’s foot in one hand, the other grasping her calf.
Alicent squeezed her eyes shut, pressing her back against the back of the couch when she felt him press his cheek into her upper leg. He nuzzled her like a cat, his whiskers like needles against the soft flesh of her inner thigh. When his nose drew too close to where her bunched up skirts kept her modesty, she gasped.
“Lord Larys,” she chided him. He withdrew a few inches at once, inhaling sharply as he went.
“Forgive me, my queen,” he pleaded of her, his voice thin. “It has been some time since I last was sated.”
“The girl…” She could say no more, her words catching in her throat before she could give voice to his crime.
Larys spoke into her thigh. “The blood of a whore, Your Grace. Nothing so sweet as yours, and some time ago besides.” He mouthed at the inside of her leg as he spoke, as though he was suckling at her breast.
Alicent shuddered as he laved his tongue over the spot where he would surely sink his teeth. “Why do you take from the leg?” she asked him. She wondered in passing if perhaps she ought to carve a seven-pointed star into her flesh there to ward him off, before realizing that it would surely draw only questions from Viserys and anger from Larys.
He held his open mouth over the spot in a gesture that bordered inappropriately on a kiss. Alicent’s leg shook from the effort it took not to pull away from him. “There is a large vein that runs through the inner thigh, Your Grace. If I were to take from the wrist, the flow would be sluggish and the taste would grow rancid.” He ducked his head as though shy, trailing off. Alicent was no longer fooled by any display of self-abasement this man performed for her. “I prefer from the throat, you see, but that is a far more unsightly location, and one that often ends…poorly…for those from whom I indulge.”
Alicent could not help but clutch the seven-pointed star at her throat then. Larys saw the gesture, his eyes crinkling with mirth at her expense. “You are well protected with that , of course, but even if your throat were bare you need not worry. A scar such as I would leave would not become you, and I have no desire to deface you.” He ignored how she stiffened at that, tucking a smile against her leg.
That he found her beautiful was an oppressive weight on Alicent’s back that threatened to hunch her as fully as Larys’ disguise did him. She turned away, no longer able to bear his breath on her skin. “Be done with it, my lord,” she commanded him. “I grow weary.”
He bowed his head to her, and the sight of his head dipped fully between her open thighs raised in Alicent a great shuddering revulsion that brought her almost to tears. Larys drew his lips back over his teeth then, something Alicent knew only from the way his cheeks tensed and plumped along the bone. She was glad that from her vantage his fangs were not visible. That she could not see when they entered her made the piercing pain more bearable somehow, allowed her to lounge in the pillow-soft delusion that she was comfortable in her bed with her eyes closed. She imagined that the prick in her thigh was only a burr caught on her nightgown, something easily plucked out and tossed aside.
The pain as he bit her was instant and burning as it always was. Her eyes flew open with the sudden rush of agony, dropping to his face just in time to see his jaw go slack in bliss as she felt his teeth slice cleanly through her flesh. When Larys drew his teeth out his mouth latched onto her thigh at once, his cold tongue desperately lapping at the pulsing stream of blood she could feel surging past his waiting lips.
Alicent gripped the armrest of the couch with one hand, squeezing her eyes shut as he continued to drink from her. When she began to feel as though she was spinning her hand fell to his hair. She intended to draw him back, but a wave of dizziness overcame her. Her hand sank into his hair and Larys made a broken sound into her skin, sucking at the broken flesh he drank from. Alicent whimpered.
She sank her nails into his scalp. She wondered if she could draw blood, if he was still capable of bleeding. “My lord.”
Larys pulled away at her words, his hands working at the pouch on his belt as he did so. He produced a folded bandage, which he held tight to the wound. “Apply pressure.”
Alicent held the bandage firmly to her wound as he brought out a strip of cloth to tie it tightly in place. She winced at the weight on the wound.
“Take heart, Your Grace. It will heal.”
She scoffed, though it was more of a shuddering sound than she would prefer. “It has before.”
He looked up at her with wide eyes that were more black than blue and a glistening red chin. “You have my most sincere gratitude.”
“A reward,” Alicent responded, forcing the words out, “for my most loyal servant.”
Larys let out a choking gasp, dropping his forehead to the cushion beneath her parted legs. When he spoke, his voice was muffled. “It is well to hear that my service does not go unnoticed.”
She looked down on his bowed head. This was no act, Alicent knew. It had long disturbed her how little he was capable of hiding after he…fed. There was a coldness in his eyes that she rarely saw otherwise — distanced by the recent satiation of his bloodlust, yes, but present in a way he ordinarily took care to mask. That he was shuddering with his head bowed rather than looking at her with steadily fraying restraint brought to her a sense of deep relief, one that washed through her muscles and brought back the warmth that fled her along with her lifeblood.
She would keep him like this, if she could. The loss of her blood was not so disturbing to her as the fear of him. Had she not bled before in service of things far more uncertain, after all? Had she not shed her blood when Viserys took her, or in the birthing bed? She could kill her fear of neither of those things, but for a fleeting moment she wondered if she might conquer this. Hesitantly, Alicent lowered her hand to his head. She saw the muscles in his neck flex for a moment, his shoulders straightening, but he did not move his head. Slowly, she began to pet his hair.
“My queen is kind.” When he raised his head to meet her eyes Alicent felt some of her blood smear from his chin to where the tops of her thighs pressed together, the cold wetness making her shift. Her fingers slipped through the strands of his hair before falling to her leg, palm up and fingers half-curled.
Larys stared up at her, open-mouthed and eyes pleading. He drifted towards her again, his mouth brushing against her open palm and then veering back between her legs. Alicent sat frozen and saw his hand creeping lower, past her knee and toward the split in his doublet where the waist of his breeches was. Her head fell backwards onto the high back of the couch, the lightheadedness taking her again in a dizzying wash that started in her stomach and ended in her scalp. Alicent gasped, legs scrabbling against the cushion as she pulled back with haste.
Larys pulled away slowly. “Your Grace?”
“I grow weak, Lord Larys,” she said. The words stumbled over each other, every one struggling for purchase against her heavy tongue.
He narrowed his eyes a touch, watching her perceptively. Alicent lamented at the change — she misliked feeling studied again after witnessing his weakness to her hand.
“Loss of blood, surely,” he assured her, though he made no move to rise. “It will pass.”
“With sleep.”
He quirked a smile, half mocking, and bowed his head briefly. “Of course.”
Alicent fixed her skirts as he clambered to his feet, smoothing them fully before he could look at her again. Her stocking stayed beside her; the threat of blood staining it was too great for her to risk. Standing once more, Larys bowed to her.
“Good night, Your Grace.”
Larys spoke the words quietly and with an air of unmasked malice that she rarely heard from him. He smiled at her — wide enough, this time, to let his sharp reddened teeth glint in the candlelight. He left then, dabbing delicately at his mouth with a handkerchief as he went.
Alicent picked up her stocking when she heard the door close, rubbing the material between her fingers and taking in the floral embroidery that decorated it. She wondered if Viserys would question her if she had seven-pointed stars sewn into them, and into her shifts and undergarments as well. A creeping, uneasy feeling wormed its way through her limbs, and though Alicent could not tell if it originated in her mind or gut or cunt, she swore she could see its equal in the shadows that swaddled her chamber like an infant.