A Game of Thrones 4-Book Bundle

all sopping wet, where Robert’s had been coarse and dry. “Please,” the Myrish woman said, “go on, my queen. Do as you will with me. I’m yours.”
    But it was no good. She could not feel it, whatever Robert felt on the nights he took her. There was no pleasure in it, not for her. For Taena, yes. Her nipples were two black diamonds, her sex slick and steamy.
Robert would have loved you, for an hour.
The queen slid a finger into that Myrish swamp, then another, moving them in and out,
but once he spent himself inside you, he would have been hard-pressed to recall your name.
    She wanted to see if it would be as easy with a woman as it had always been with Robert.
Ten thousand of your children perished in my palm, Your Grace,
she thought, slipping a third finger into Myr.
Whilst you snored, I would lick your sons off my face and fingers one by one, all those pale sticky princes. You claimed your rights, my lord, but in the darkness I would eat your heirs.
Taena gave a shudder. She gasped some words in a foreign tongue, then shuddered again and arched her back and screamed.
She sounds as if she is being gored,
the queen thought. For a moment she let herself imagine that her fingers were a bore’s tusks, ripping the Myrish woman apart from groin to throat.
    It was still no good.
    It had never been any good with anyone but Jaime.
    When she tried to take her hand away, Taena caught it and kissed her fingers. “Sweet queen, how shall I pleasure you?” She slid her hand down Cersei’s side and touched her sex. “Tell me what you would have of me, my love.”
    â€œLeave me.” Cersei rolled away and pulled up the bedclothes to cover herself, shivering. Dawn was breaking. It would be morning soon, and all of this would be forgotten.
    It had never happened.

JAIME
    T he trumpets made a brazen blare, and cut the still blue air of dusk. Josmyn Peckledon was on his feet at once, scrambling for his master’s swordbelt.
    The boy has good instincts.
“Outlaws don’t blow trumpets to herald their arrival,” Jaime told him. “I shan’t need my sword. That will be my cousin, the Warden of the West.”
    The riders were dismounting when he emerged from his tent; half a dozen knights, and twoscore mounted archers and men-at-arms.
“Jaime!”
roared a shaggy man clad in gilded ringmail and a fox-fur cloak. “So gaunt, and all in white! And bearded too!”
    â€œThis? Mere stubble, against that mane of yours, coz.” Ser Daven’s bristling beard and bushy mustache grew into sidewhiskers as thick as a hedgerow, and those into the tangled yellow thicket atop his head, matted down by the helm he was removing. Somewhere in the midst of all that hair lurked a pug nose and a pair of lively hazel eyes. “Did some outlaw steal your razor?”
    â€œI vowed I would not let my hair be cut until my father was avenged.” For a man who looked so leonine, Daven Lannister sounded oddly sheepish. “The Young Wolf got to Karstark first, though. Robbed me of my vengeance.” He handed his helm to a squire and pushed his fingers through his hair where the weight of the steel had crushed it down. “I like a bit of hair. The nights grow colder, and a little foliage helps to keep your face warm. Aye, and Aunt Genna always said I had a brick for a chin.” He clasped Jaime by the arms. “We feared for you after the Whispering Wood. Heard Stark’s direwolf tore out your throat.”
    â€œDid you weep bitter tears for me, coz?”
    â€œHalf of Lannisport was mourning. The female half.” Ser Daven’s gaze went to Jaime’s stump. “So it’s true. The bastards took your sword hand.”
    â€œI have a new one, made of gold. There’s much to be said for being one-handed. I drink less wine for fear of spilling and am seldom inclined to scratch my arse at court.”
    â€œAye, there’s that. Maybe I should have mine off as well.” His cousin laughed. “Was it Catelyn Stark who took it?”
    â€œVargo Hoat.”
Where do these tales come from?
    â€œThe Qohorik?” Ser Daven spat. “That’s for him and all his Brave Companions. I told your father I would forage for him, but he refused me. Some tasks are fit for lions, he said, but foraging is best left for goats and dogs.”
    Lord Tywin’s very words, Jaime knew; he could almost hear his father’s voice. “Come