Upon reaching the apartment building, Leon walked inside like he owned the place.
Someone was blatantly sleeping in the middle of the hallway—homeless, probably, or just another resident who'd had a rough night. Leon stepped over him without a second glance. This was that kind of building. Nothing surprising anymore.
Him walking in at 2 AM, topless, followed by a woman who looked like she'd stepped out of a fever dream? Probably wouldn't even make the top ten weirdest things the residents had seen this week.
He pressed the elevator button. The doors creaked open. They stepped inside.
Shiera followed silently.
Leon glanced at her. Strange. He'd expected questions about the elevator, something she must have first seen but she did not.
As if sensing his thoughts, Shiera turned and smiled at him.
"I have watched you since you were chosen. Since you met my ancestors."
Leon moved before he thought about it.
His arm shot out, hand slamming against the elevator mirror right next to Shiera's face. The glass cracked—a spiderweb fracture spreading from his palm. He ignored it. Leaned in close, staring down at her.
Shiera pressed against the mirror, but she didn't flinch. Didn't show fear. If anything, that dark smile of hers widened.
"Chosen by whom?" Leon's voice came out rougher than he intended. He was done waiting. Done with mysteries. Done with not understanding what was happening to him.
"I don't know." Her mismatched eyes held his gaze easily. "A figure in white. He said you were the Alter King, someone with great fate. He said I would drown in knowledge and power by your side."
Leon stared at her. This sounded like the setup to a bad fantasy novel. The kind he would have rolled his eyes at before all this.
"Great fate." His voice dripped skepticism. "Do I look like someone who wants to fight evil?" He asked sarcastically.
"You would eventually."
He ignored that. "You left Westeros. Left your life as a princess in King's Landing. Followed a man in white you'd never seen before?"
Shiera's smile didn't waver. "I was bored in King's Landing. It was tiring. They're all stupid there—every last one of them." She reached up, placing her delicate hand on his bare chest. "Now here, I see things I have never seen." Her fingers traced light patterns on his skin. "And I see a strange man—like none I have ever met. I wish to see where he goes eventually."
The elevator chimed. Third floor. His floor.
Leon didn't move. He kept staring at her, processing, trying to find the lie. He didn't find one.
He pressed the button for the fourth floor instead.
"You know nothing else."
"Nothing else." She shook her head, still smiling.
"I underestimated how mentally disturbed you were. The books didn't do it justice."
"Forget your books." Her voice dropped, softer now. "That's not me."
"Why?"
"Because that's not who I am."
She rose on her tiptoes, leaning into him, and pressed her lips against his.
Leon's brain short-circuited.
First kiss. Actual first kiss, with a girl, happening right now in a cracked-elevator mirror at 2 AM with a woman who might be insane but also might be the most beautiful creature he'd ever seen.
His body reacted before his mind caught up. His free hand—the one not planted on the mirror—found her waist. Pulled her closer. He leaned into her, pressing her back against the cracked glass, and kissed her back.
"Hmm…" Shiera made a small sound against his lips. Pleased. Encouraging. Her hand slid from his chest to his shoulder, then to his hip, pulling him tighter as she kissed him fiercer.
Heat. Confusion. Desire. It all swirled together until—
The elevator doors opened.
Fourth floor.
Leon pulled back abruptly, breathing hard.
Shiera blinked, surprise flickering across her perfect features for the first time. Her lips were slightly swollen, slightly red, slightly parted.
Leon stepped back staring at her.
"You're definitely the same as in the books," he said, voice rough, and walked out of the elevator.
Behind him, Shiera's surprise melted into something else. Amusement.
She followed, quicker to catch up than she should have been.
Leon walked down the fourth-floor hallway. Shiera followed close behind, her mismatched eyes watching him with that same quiet curiosity.
"Where are you going?" she asked, her voice soft in the empty corridor. "Your home isn't here. It's below."
Leon didn't answer. He kept walking until he reached a door at the end of the hall. Then he reached out and pushed.
It opened.
It wasn't even locked.
John probably left out of anger to beat him a floor below.
Leon stepped inside.
Shiera paused at the threshold, looking around the dark apartment with mild interest.
"This is John's home," Leon said.
"That man you killed when you could have saved him?" Shiera asked.
"That man, yeah."
He walked further in, then turned and pulled Shiera inside with him. The door swung shut behind them, leaving them in near-darkness.
Shiera didn't resist. She just looked around, taking in the mess—because it was a mess. John's apartment was everything you'd expect from a drunk with no family and no future. Empty bottles everywhere. Clothes strewn across furniture. A smell that suggested basic hygiene was optional.
"What might you be looking for here?" She asked, watching as Leon moved through the space.
"He's dead anyway." Leon opened a drawer, found nothing. Closed it. Moved to the next. "I'll take whatever money he has."
He spotted a box of plastic gloves on a counter—the kind you'd buy in bulk from a discount store. He pulled out a pair and snapped them on. At least he wouldn't have to buy new ones.
Shiera didn't help. She just watched, leaning against the wall with her arms crossed, her expression unreadable.
Leon checked under the mattress. Nothing. Checked the closet. Nothing. Then he opened a drawer in the nightstand and found it.
Bundles of cash. Multiple bundles. He pulled them out and counted roughly—maybe five thousand dollars total, in various denominations.
That was... a lot. Too much for a guy like John. Drug money, probably. Or something worse.
Leon set the bills aside and kept searching.
His heel hit something under the bed. He knelt down, reached underneath, and pulled out a metal case. The kind you'd use for important documents. Or for something else.
He opened it.
Cocaine. Packets and packets of white powder, neatly arranged inside.
Leon stared at it for a long moment.
He should be surprised. Shocked. Horrified, maybe. This was serious—major crime serious, the kind of thing that got people killed or locked away for decades.
But he felt nothing. Just a vague sense of confirmation. Of course John was a dealer. Of course. It fit perfectly with everything else about this miserable building and these miserable people.
He closed the case and picked it up. Money in one hand, cocaine in the other.
Then he grabbed tissues from a box on the nightstand and started wiping down surfaces. The drawer handles. The nightstand. The door handle on his way out. Anywhere he might have left prints.
Shiera followed without comment, stepping over debris, her gown trailing through the filth like she was walking through a garden.
Leon pulled the door shut behind them and wiped the outside handle too. Then he walked back toward the stairs, the case tucked under his arm, the money in his hand.
Shiera fell into step beside him.
"What's in that box?" she asked, glancing at the metal case.
Leon didn't look at her. "Trouble."
"Trouble worth taking?"
Leon stared down at the case.
"We will see."
Taking the elevator again, Leon and Shiera rode down to the third floor. Finally, he was back home—and now with a new Targaryen princess. Not in name, technically, but Shiera had Targaryen blood running thick through her veins. Bastard or not, she was as much a dragon as any of them.
Leon opened the door. Shiera stepped inside immediately, her mismatched eyes sweeping across the small space with obvious curiosity.
Leon followed, closing the door behind him. "If you're going to stay here, you listen to me."
Shiera turned, that smile already forming on her lips. "I will listen to anything you say... if you listen to my wishes."
Leon groaned.
He could already tell this one was going to be far more complicated than Visenya and Rhaenys combined. Those two had been straightforward—proud, dangerous, but predictable in their own ways. Shiera? She was a different beast entirely.
"I'm taking a shower. Stay put."
He placed the metal case aside, grabbed clean clothes, and stripped off his wet things. The bathroom door closed behind him with a click.
Hot water. Scalding hot. He turned the faucet all the way and pressed his hands against the tile wall, letting the water pound against his head and shoulders. Too hot, probably. He didn't care.
He gasped slightly, adjusting, then just... stood there. Breathing.
He had died.
He had come back.
Shiera had brought him back.
And right now, standing under this water, all he felt was—
Liberated.
Free.
The anguish that had lived in his chest for years? Gone. The pain? Gone. The self-loathing, the hopelessness, the endless weight of existing? All of it, washed away like dirt down the drain.
Slowly, his lips curled into a smile. Genuine. Maybe twisted. But real.
Years of misery, vanished in a single night.
He clenched his fists against the tile, teeth gritting through his smile, exhilaration running through his body like fire.
When he finally stepped out ten minutes later, he was still topless, towel drying his hair. He passed the mirror—then stopped.
Wiped the steam away with his free hand.
Stared.
"What the hell..."
Half his hair had turned silver-gold. Not streaks anymore—half his head. The brown was still there, but the silver had spread, weaving through like it belonged.
His face looked different too. Hard to say exactly how—same features, same structure—but something had shifted. Sharpened. Made him look less like the boy who'd jumped off a bridge and more like...
Like someone else.
He touched his chin, turned his head side to side. Then shrugged and walked out.
He'd figure it out later.
In the main room, Shiera had made herself comfortable.
She was on his bed. In a position that was either accidentally provocative or purposefully designed to short-circuit his brain. With her damp hair and that silver gown still clinging in places, she looked—there was no other word for it—incredible.
Leon forced his gaze to stay neutral. "You should wash. I'm done."
Shiera rose gracefully and approached him closely.
"Show me."
Leon raised an eyebrow. "You didn't watch everything I did with Visenya and Rhaenys?"
"I didn't watch everything down to the second."
Fair enough.
He showed her—explained the faucet, the hot and cold, the shampoo, the soap. Simple. Quick. Then he closed the door and left her to it.
In the main room, he started looking for Visenya's bag of clothes. He'd seen it earlier—the one with all the new things he'd bought them. If he could find it, he could give Shiera something clean to wear.
But it wasn't there. Neither bag. He checked everywhere.
"They came back," he muttered, scratching his damp hair. "Took their things."
Of course they did.
Without other options, he grabbed fresh shorts and a T-shirt from his own limited wardrobe. The shirt would be loose on Shiera—she was smaller than him, or had been earlier. But now? He held the shirt up, considering. His own body had changed. More mass. Taller, maybe. The shirt would fit him fine, but it would still be big on her.
Good enough for tonight. Tomorrow he'd buy new clothes. For both of them.
He left the clothes and a towel outside the bathroom door, then retreated to the bedroom.
Fresh sheets on the bed—he'd changed them while she showered, not wanting to sleep on the ones stained with John's blood, even if the blood was gone. Then he collapsed onto the mattress, arms behind his head, staring at the ceiling.
There was that stain up there.
Now it annoyed him, not like before he ignored it.
"I'm getting my house back from that old man."
The words came out quiet, but certain.
The bathroom door opened. Footsteps. Then Shiera entered, wearing his clothes.
Leon stared.
He tried not to. Tried to be polite, respectful, normal. But she was too much to behold.
The T-shirt hung loose on her, but not loose enough to hide her shape. And without a bra underneath, well. He could tell she had plenty of weight to carry. The shorts showed off her legs—pale, perfect, leading up to thighs that seemed designed to distract a man from rational thought.
Her skin seemed even more luminous now, clean and damp and glowing in the low light.
When she caught him staring, she smiled. Pulled her wet hair back over one shoulder, letting the movement draw his eyes where she wanted them.
Leon looked away slowly.
He needed to get used to this. Fast. He was handling it better than his old self would have—that version of him would have melted into a puddle by now—but he couldn't let himself be ensnared. Not by her. Shiera Seastar was one of the most dangerous Targaryen princesses who ever lived. Maybe the most dangerous.
She approached the bed. Sat on the edge. Started to lie down next to him.
"What are you doing?"
"Sleeping." Those mismatched eyes met his. "You don't expect me to sleep on the ground, do you?"
Leon fell silent.
He had no intention of sleeping on the ground either. And honestly? Thinking back, he felt almost embarrassed. His old self had given up his bed so easily to Visenya and Rhaenys—as if they deserved it more than him, as if he was obligated to suffer for their comfort. They'd been the intruders, not him.
Things were different now.
He scooted closer to the wall, leaving space. Enough for both of them.
Shiera laid down fully, then turned toward him. On her side. Watching him with that faint smile, those beautiful impossible eyes half-lidded.
"Sleep the other way," Leon said.
"You can," she replied simply.
He didn't argue. Turned to face the wall.
Then he felt it—a slight chill. Her foot, touching his calf. Bare skin against bare skin.
He shivered. From the cold, from the sensation, from everything.
He turned toward her. "Just sleep."
But her eyes were already closed. Face peaceful. Breathing steady.
Leon frowned, studied her for a moment, then turned back to the wall.
Eventually, exhaustion won. His eyes closed. His breathing slowed.
Behind him, Shiera's eyes opened. She watched the back of his head for a long moment, that faint smile still playing on her lips. Then she closed her eyes again.
They slept.
Both of them, equally tired after the longest day of their lives.