Archive of Our Own

This isn’t right, Jeyne thinks, creeping around her home like a thief, but she presses on. Her steps are light and quiet as she navigates in the dark, familiar with the maze of the castle, even blind, as she treads carefully over the crumbling stone. She makes her way to her room--no his, she corrects herself--but it doesn’t feel right, half a lie and a little truth, meeting somewhere in the middle; theirs, she thinks, feeling her stomach flip and her heart quicken, and she should banish the thought, but it sticks.

Jeyne hates this, keeping secrets, telling lies, and tries to make her feet stop moving, but they don’t, only quicken their pace. He invaded your home and made you a hostage, she reminds herself, as if she could forget it, how he brought war to her gates, let it creep in and spoil her memories.

Jeyne can’t stop grinding her teeth around his men, her anger simmering beneath her skin, ready to snap when they trample through her home with muddy boots, when they keep her from the sea, blocking off the grounds with their tents and keeping her locked inside with their swords. It’s his wolf that makes her shake, though, more than his men, terror spiking through in her veins as he prowls the yard, looking up at her in her tower with familiar eyes as she trembles. She remembers the blood smeared across his fur, the snap of his jaws (she remembers how Robb's voice would drop low and rough when he spoke to her at times and how she thought of his wolf, growling at her mother, his haunches rising as he bared his teeth; he's never snarled at her when she stepped too close, only watched her as Robb watches her, keeping her in his sights with his eyes hungry and whetted, peeling away her layers until she feels itchy and bare, like thing to pursue, to hunt, to claim).

Robb smiles, warmer than he ought to, more perilous than his wolf’s teeth; it leaves her shaking, feeling like betrayal. King in the North with winter trailing at his heels, carrying the burden of his grief that cracked him open and left him bleeding, his voice is quiet when it creeps under her skin, spilling secrets and truths (things she shouldn’t know, things he should only tell a friend). It makes her forget the danger, the warning--she expected a king, but he smiles at her like a boy, like summer, and he mourns like anyone else. She stopped carrying a knife with her days ago as something that feels like trust unwillingly built up inside her, replacing the weight of steel with open hands.

She kept the knife tucked in her skirts, small and deadly and given to her by her father, a weapon for girls who live too close to the sea, with a coastline to close to Pyke, to the Iron Islands. It’s the one she nearly slid between his ribs when he was delirious with fever, when she almost ended it, a mercy killing for them all--but he was unconscious as she dismantled the layers of iron and steel that encased his body and made him appear larger, sturdier until he was left naked to the waist and defenseless as she pulled the arrow from his shoulder and stitched him back up. Jeyne looked down at his face, unlined and relaxed, looking far too young and vulnerable for her to stand; it reminded her that he was not much older than her, and younger than Raynald, how she held his life in her hands.

That was a mistake. She should have left his care to their maester, not taken it upon herself, proud and determined and bull-headed, not when all she saw was a boy when he looked her (smiling and charming--act like a king, she wanted to tell him, act like the man who captured my father, and not someone who could be a friend). When the raven brought news, Robb crumpled the letter in his fist when he received it as if he could crush it to dust, as if that could make it untrue, as if it could bring his brothers back--then he asked her softly if they kept a godswood. She took him to the sept, the only thing she had to offer him, only his mother’s gods and none of his father’s. She held him up, his arm wrapped around her shoulders, hand clutching tightly to her arm as he walked on wobbly, unused legs across the yard.

His men averted their eyes yet she felt their questioning stares upon her back, felt her mother’s disapproval under her skin. She meant only to sit him down and step away, had turned to leave, when a sob escaped his lips and she turned back--he curled against her when she opened her arms, hands clenching in cloth of her gown as he held her tighter, so tight she thought she would crack, too, as his sobs wracked his body, his face buried in the crook of her neck and his tears burned tracks on her skin. And she held him, whispering soothing, senseless things, brushing her fingers through his hair, thinking she couldn’t imagine how it must feel--it hurt like a dull ache in her chest not fully formed, not a real thing to think of losing Raynald or Elenya or Rollam. She clutched him back as she realized she didn’t hate him, she didn’t hate him at all.

Jeyne could laugh herself sick imagining her mother’s face if she knew. Maybe she does, she thinks, knowing her mother’s gaze, hawk-eyed and piercing, always, always watching. It feels like claws in her back, buried deep in her flesh, like her embrace, suffocating--there’s all this space and still she can’t seem to breathe under her mother’s thumb (it gets easier to at Robb’s bedside, easier than she thought it would be around him, breathing in the space around him like open sea air). But she couldn’t, her mother would have put a stop to it if she knew how Jeyne crept through the halls when the hush of night fell, slipped in beside him, and slept in the Young Wolf’s bed (it was hers first), ever since that day in the sept, since he asked her to stay with pleading, red-rimmed eyes and a hand that felt nothing like a shackle but an invitation around her wrist. Her mother would have ended it if she knew how Jeyne slept, unafraid and vulnerable, curled around Robb like an anchor, like a shield, her arms and legs like stitches, keeping the pieces of him together as he falls apart.

She keeps coming back, more and more as the nights pass, driven by the need to comfort and giving way to desire (for solace, she thinks to herself, but it's more than that now), the two of them merging within her, breeding a craving that spurs through her--for his company and their conversations, for this slow-building camaraderie swelling up in her chest, wanting to see him smile and smooth away the hurt with her hands. She wishes she could cut it out of her, feel the hot and heavy mess in her hands, the traitorous pumping muscle bleeding onto her skin before she tossed it away--but he kissed her that night after the sept and created a rebellion inside her, sparked a war inside her head, this boy made of steel and tasting of blood, leaving only destruction in his path. He calls out to her like ocean waves, begging her to dive in despite the rocks and their jagged edges, ready to batter, bruise, and cut into her flesh when the current smashed her against them.

It rushes over her, this calm acceptance that settles into her bones (they’re going to pull each other under until they drown themselves in this disaster).

Robb is sitting up when she slips inside tonight, closing the door behind her and setting the latch, checking to see if its hold is firm, her nervousness fluttering hard in her stomach she swallows down and finds her throat dry. He doesn’t move, shirtless, stripped as he’s always been with her, his spine a taut, angry line as he stares out the window, silent with only the crash of waves breaking on stone to impede the litany of his harsh, quick breaths. She can see the bruises on his skin in the moonlight, faint and yellow and healing (she wants to trace her fingers over them, and she thinks about dragging her mouth across his mottled skin--he kissed me first, so I can kiss him now, she thinks--the feeling of it running hot and wild through her, making her bite her lip); he’s getting stronger (angrier, she thinks, he grows as hard and wild as that wolf of his, and it worries her for all the wrong reasons). Jeyne climbs up on the bed, settling behind him as she reaches out to him and Robb softens at her touch, feeling how his muscles loosen under her fingertips as he turns to look at her.

“I was worried you had gotten caught,” he says. His hand reaches out until she feels his fingertips on her cheek, light and barely there, running down the slope of her cheekbone. For a moment, Jeyne thinks he might actually be afraid, but his hand drops and his expression shifts, lips pursing as he pouts at her like a child. “Or that you had decided not to come, then I would have had to sleep alone.”

She laughs, can’t help it bubbling out of her throat. “Oh, the horror.”

"It would have been horrible, I'd have spent all night worrying what I'd done to offend you and I would not sleep at all," he says, his features very serious and hard, but his eyes softer, lighter, giving himself away.

Jeyne finds herself grinning down at him. “Are you so unused to sleeping alone?” she asks, impulsively combing her fingers through his hair, drawing her hand down his face and cupping his cheek. “Though, I am sure a man like you--”

“A man like me?” Robb interjects with a furrow in his brow and a half-smile playing at his lips.

“--has found no lack of bedmates; kitchen maids, camp followers, distressed damsels--I bet they were all willing to keep your bed warm for you.”

It’s Robb’s turn to laugh, but it sounds nothing like a laugh ought to, just a hollow, wretched sound passing over his lips. “I’m afraid you have me wrongly pegged. There’s been no one, not since--”

“Since?” Jeyne asks as her hand drops. She scoots closer until she's sitting by his side, their thighs touching and she reaches for his hand, intertwining their fingers.

“Winterfell,” he says in that sorrowing voice steeped in longing she’s grown used to hearing; she isn’t sure she’s heard him talk of his home in any other tone. “My brother, Jon and I used to share. It was colder there than I am sure it gets down here. I still remember how freezing some nights could be.” He laughs again, a soft noise as he breathes out, ducking his head. “Jon is no doubt colder than I am now...”

Robb trails off until he falls silent, eyes downcast, staring at their hands as he squeezes and releases hers, toying with her fingers--she wonders where his mind has drifted, if it’s North towards the Wall, to Jon, or South to his sisters, still trapped in King’s Landing, but she thinks it all circles back to the two little ones who died, killed in their home that burned. Jeyne wants to tell him it wasn’t his fault, but she knows he wouldn’t listen.

Instead, she tilts his chin up to look him in the eyes. “How are you feeling?” she asks, hoping to pull him out of his head just a little, letting him know she’s still there.

“I’ll live yet, I suppose,” he says, shutting his eyes for a moment.

He doesn’t utter a single protest this time as he had the nights before--you shouldn’t, I’m sorry, you should leave--weak courtesies Jeyne doesn’t think he was ever good at. He just looks at her when his eyes open again, a bit hopeful, but wrecked underneath it all, and leans against her, her arms wrapping around him. He winds around her, too, filling in gaps and spaces as he fits himself against her--they align, two matching pieces from different sets, not made to fit, but they do. He relaxes like he knows she'd be there to catch him, to hold him, like she's his solid ground, something stable and sturdy.

(Not like what her mother wanted for her, who told her to be delicate, sweet, and accommodating, not brash and careless, taught her the art of being a lady; you should be perfect, so they find no fault with you, she said, a firmness in her gaze, desperate around the edges as she stroked Jeyne’s face, the world will not kind to your flaws, you will find no sympathy outside this castle. Perhaps the lessons were better suited for Elenya, who excelled at being gentle and kind and courteous, while Jeyne chafed under her mother’s scrutiny, skin itching as she held her tongue, her mother’s gaze measuring and finding her lacking. They never took, not the way their maester’s soft dictation had, with his quiet instruction as he slipped her books and gave her small, secret encouraging smiles--she felt more made to have blood under her fingernails than to curtsy and smile, to sew flesh then to create intricate artistry with needlework.)

He's a king, she has to remind herself, but crownless, armorless, and laid bare it gets harder and harder to remember--he acts the boy with her, like she imagines he acted before he went to war. It makes her heart race and pound against her rib cage as something inside her twists and wrenches, her inhales sucking in sharper as a heady rush of knowledge fills her head--he took her castle, but she likes this, enjoys holding pieces of him that belong to no one (no one but her). In the dark corners, here in her room, he's hers; this is theirs.

Now, do it now, Jeyne tells herself when she ducks her head toward his on impulse, her heart leaping into her throat as she moves quick and sudden, pressing her mouth to his hard, with more teeth than lips, her eyes squeezed shut. She can hear her mother's voice in her head, harsh and direct, a whisper in her ear like a warning; Jeyne, she hisses, stop this madness--and it is madness, she thinks as it nearly makes her grin against his mouth, a thrill that feels like a secret burning up her spine.

Jeyne remembers his kiss (the first time, turning toward her in the dark when she had come to hold him in the night, pulling at her like undertow), how his lips burned across hers, the feel of his hand holding her face, her cheek resting in his palm, delicately, gently. He kissed her with an edge, but restrained, some untapped ferocity lurking below the surface of his kisses that tasted of salt and sorrow and need. Robb had broken away, a soft apology on his lips where hers had been, a gentle sort of courtesy she didn’t want--she had only wanted to kiss him back or slap him, ask him what he thought he was doing (mostly she wanted to run into the sea and dive under the waves, clear her head of all the voices inside it--but she couldn't, she was trapped, like a princess in songs, and there was no knight to come save her here, only a king with a wolf’s grin and eyes like daggers in her heart).

She reaches out now, holding onto him as she crosses a line and takes (it's what she wants, this; her mouth on his). He doesn’t return the kiss, but his hands tighten, gripping her arms as he holds back--she doesn’t give him a chance to as she pulls away, just as fast as she leaned in, sucking in deep, heavy breaths that pull at her shoulders--it twists in her gut, this almost-fear (she could keep her eyes closed and not face it, not face him, but his hands are still on her, she feels the heat of them, burning through the cloth of her gown and she knows, she can’t hide now).

When she opens her eyes, Robb is looking at her with his head cocked to the side, gaze measuring yet amused. A grin tugs at the corner of his mouth, lifting it at one side, infuriating in the way she wants to lean back in and kiss it away, to make him stop (except she doesn't want to chase away the smile that has lit up his face--she wants to keep it, map it out with her hands and mouth; she wants to capture the lightness that’s creeped into his features and softened hard lines, to hold it and try and stop it from going away).

“What was that for?” he asks like he doesn’t know, his voice light and strangely teasing.

She stiffens at his question, her insides freezing up (you’re stealing my courage, like you stole that first kiss, like you stole my castle). His hands run up and down her arms, and it would almost be a soothing gesture if he wasn’t looking at her quite like that, like he expects an answer, one she doesn’t have yet, like this is a game. Jeyne almost wonders if it’s her fault, that they’re staring at each other, both at a loss as to what to do (she always imagined him kissing her back, when she turned it over in her head, not quite a plan, more of an idea, a reoccurring thought that bloomed out of desire; she only thought of him kissing her, pulling her back with his hands--the thought of stepping over the line together, the one they shouldn’t cross always sending a wicked thrill up her spine).

His questioning gaze sets her teeth on edge, the way his mouth curved upwards making irritation simmering under her skin, feeling it hot on her face as his thumbs rub circles across her arms; he wasn’t supposed to make her think, make her remember she’s not supposed to be doing this. “You kissed me first,” she hisses, her tone like a knife, cutting as it flies out of her mouth like an accusation.

“I did,” Robb says as he leans in close, flashing his teeth as if to say, and I’d do it again (then why don’t you? she wants to ask). But he doesn’t, just hovers near her, his hands curled around her elbows.

Jeyne feels herself shifting back, to put space between them (she’s shaking again, her senses alight with a heightened awareness of her body and his, and how they’re not meant to be this close). “You shouldn’t have done that,” she says, watching his face; it only grows warmer, his fingers tap on her arms like he wants to let go and touch her face, but too afraid of her running (or perhaps it's only her that thinks she'll run--she feels the itch in her feet, the urge building up in her chest like an ache, weighty and thick, making it difficult to breathe).

His grin sharpens. “I know,” he says, but he doesn’t know, not quite.

“This was a mistake,” she whispers, soft, words like a breath, and it feels like admitting defeat, her resolve crumbling as it shifts inside her (she knew it was a mess, but it was hers and she wanted it--she wants to push down the shame creeping up her neck, but it’s easier to pack this away and pretend it never happened, bury it before it comes back to haunt her, leave it in the dark where it belongs). Jeyne shrinks from him and feels like a coward (it gnaws at her, growing discontentedly and she wants to lash out, feeling her nails dig into the palms of her hands; she wants to make him hurt for making her feel like this, letting this confusion seep into her veins, making her feel half-mad--but it’s better just to walk away).

He holds tight for a moment, his fingers digging into her arms, hurting and she’s afraid he won’t let her go when he eyes go dark, that she might have to claw and bite her way to freedom (he’s a wolf, she remembers, often forgetting in the face of his gentleness, forgetting behind his sweet kisses that his teeth are sharp, that she should take care as she realizes she’s let him too close already)--but it snaps, and his eyes are clear as he blinks, his hands falling from her arms. “Forgive me,” he says quietly, a crack in his voice shattering his soft tones. “I shouldn’t have done that either.”

Jeyne tears her eyes from his and doesn’t say anything as she pushes away, letting the space fill up between them (this wasn’t something she wanted, this distance when all she wanted was to be closer), but she lingers at the edge of the bed when she finds her footing, can’t seem to make herself turn and leave, already wanting to close the distance between them.

What a fool I’ve made of myself.

Jeyne sighs, feels it shaking up through her ribs as she urges herself to move, her cheeks flushing hot and angry. Her head starts to spin and she feels like he took something from her, twisted up her insides and mixed up her head (sometimes she thinks he’s more thief than king, more bandit than lord; he stole her castle, stole into her head, stole her good sense--she doesn’t want to think about what else he’s stolen, refuses to believe it).

His hand is around her wrist before she can get any further, his grip loose, his thumb just barely brushing over her pulse and she shouldn’t look, but she does. Robb isn’t smiling when he looks at her, only a gentle pleading in his eyes, blue like the sea on a clear summer’s day, and he uses it like a weapon, drawing her back, but it’s her feet that move, shuffling across the stone floor until she’s climbing up on the bed again, crawling back back beside him.

“Can I?” he asks when she reaches him, his hand sliding against her cheek, his arm wrapping around her waist, tugging her closer, pulling her up against his chest as her knees bracketing his hips, and she isn’t sure why he’s asking at all (not when she wants this as much as him).

Jeyne brings his mouth to hers with a hand at the back of his neck in the place of yes, her fingers tangling in his hair as they kiss for the third time. It’s slow and deliberate in a way that leaves her gasping into his mouth when his tongue slips in beside hers, feeling the scratch of his beard against her cheeks, against her chin, leaving a burn. Jeyne wants more, pushing at him with her kisses, insistent (she knows he’s holding back, she feels it in the way he kisses her, the way he handles her, delicate and careful as if she were precious and made of glass, easily broken).

There’s an edge to the groan that he lets escape against her mouth when she arches against him, low and dark and rumbling (like a growl, she thinks as she shudders). Robb presses her to the bed, quick and easy as her legs slide around his waist, his kisses turning harder, wilder and Jeyne meets him, taking his intensity and reflecting it back, her fingers pulling at his hair as his hands grip tight, bruising. I should be cautious, she thinks, careful, now--but Jeyne bites him back when Robb nips at her lips, their teeth clacking when she surges up too fast to meet his mouth, her skin starting to feel hot, feverish under his hands, a need building up between her thighs, making her squeeze her legs around him--I was never the proper lady my mother wanted me to be.

She wonders if he’s done this before, if he fumbled with clothes, with shaking hands and fierce kisses, hearts racing and terrified they might get caught, but wanting too much to stop (he has, she’s sure of it as he moves above her, as he holds her--there’s an awkwardness to him, the way he starts and stops, handling her roughly, then smoothing it over with softness, gentle kisses and quiet apologies--it’s as if he forgets himself, doesn't know how to fit himself against her, how to touch her, like he's not used to someone like her under him; Robb touches her like she's still something new, a curiosity--arching and reaching for her confidently, then surprised as his hand closes around her curves).

Jeyne never lain with a man before, but she has come close, curiosity whispering in her ear like a siren's call, urging her on--she kissed a stable boy once and they fell into a bay of hay, tugging at each other’s clothes and moving against each other inept and ungraceful, knocking knees and noses poking each other painfully as their hands skimmed over bare skin. She remembers, he called her milady, soft and gasping over her ear, when all she wanted to hear was Jeyne.

That’s where her mother found them and dragged her away, hand gripping tight to her arm, her fingernails embedded sharply in her skin, whispering harshly, Cover yourself, Jeyne, you look like a common whore. Jeyne had shrugged back into her gown and tied up the laces, flushed as her eyes flashed up at her mother and she quelled the urge to yell, to talk back (why should it matter? she had wanted to ask, no one wants me anyway, no one but the stable boy; her father had tried, each lord had turned him down, politely and courteously, but it was always there--all about her doubtful blood, even if she didn’t understand what was so doubtful about it, she was a Westerling, same as her father, and his before him); she bit down on her tongue until she tasted blood.

The stable boy disappeared for days, and when he came back, he was missing a hand. It must have been her father’s order, but her mother’s words, insistent in his ear (it was a punishment for him, but a warning for Jeyne, a reminder). He wouldn’t look at her when she passed and she dared not speak to him. Jeyne never even knew his name.

Robb won’t lose a hand--not the one resting at the base of her spine, holding her up, pressing her closer, nor the one warm on her thigh, leaving a trail of heat in its wake as it slides up, slipping under her gown, pushing it back as it starts to settle around her waist--that’s not the danger here.

“Jeyne,” he gasps out over her ear (Robb wants her now, just her, and she thinks, maybe wolves just don't care about blood--it's all the same to them). Robb repeats her name over again, as if he likes the feel of it in his mouth as his lips slide down her jaw, under her chin and pressing against her throat; “Jeyne,” he says with his tongue and teeth and his breath hot, spelling it out across her skin, “Jeyne,” he repeats, over and over until she’s sure he’ll never tire of it. (Robb, she says to herself, echoing him, repeating it in her mind, grasping at it like it’s hers, Robb, Robb.)

He rocks his hips into hers and suddenly she feels him, warm and hard through their thin layers, slipping further against space she made for him between her legs, the shock of it driving her nails into the skin of his back as Robb groans against her mouth. It could almost an accident, she thinks as Robb pulls back, his forehead resting against hers, holding her gaze--until he does it again, pressing more firmly. She digs her nails in deeper as he does it, breaking his skin under the onslaught, and she can’t think, not over the sound of her heart racing, anticipation sparking through her veins (her small clothes are damp and sticky, and she wonders if Robb can feel it, if it’s bled through, feel it like she can feel him). Her body arches up without her command, like being tugged by some invisible string and she feels her hips twist, her legs pulling him in tighter, craving more friction as he pants against her mouth.

Jeyne kisses him again, moaning into it when he grinds down and bites at her lips. It wasn't enough, not nearly so, not like it must be for him; the friction still faint and dulled by the barriers between them, but she shivers all the same as his hands run down her sides, fingers gripping at her hips as the ache between her thighs builds.

Abruptly, he stops moving, freezing up over her, under her hands. Jeyne starts to feel him tug himself away, but she hangs on, her hands sliding up to clutch at the back of his neck, twining in his hair, pressing quick kisses to his mouth as he struggles with her. “Jeyne,” he says on a gasp, before her mouth covers his again, “Jeyne, let go.” A whine builds in the back of her throat as she makes herself uncurl her fingers; it escapes her lips when she falls back against the bed, looking up at Robb as he hovers over her, her lips rising in a playful pout. “Is this alright?” he asks, and she could have laughed, but he looks down at her with such wide eyes, a nervousness skittering across his blown-open features, rising up with the pink flush in his cheeks and she finds she couldn’t--instead, she grins gently at his mussed hair and swollen lips, how ruffled he appears as she reaches up to cup his cheek in her hand.

“Don’t be so foolish,” she says, leaning up and slotting their mouths together again, pleased to feel him slowly melting against her; she slides her hand down his arm as they kiss, wrapping around his wrist and starts to drag his hand upwards, from her hip and letting it dip around her waist. Robb breaks their kiss and watches the rise of his hand as she shudders under his gaze, under the feel of his hand as he curls his fingers around her rib cage, pressing into the gaps; he lets her direct him and she feels it go to her head, a heady buzz around her ears, a wicked thrill dancing up her legs and shooting through her spine when she brings his hand to cup around her breast and he sucks in a sharp inhale.

“I know what I want,” Jeyne says, and she knows that she does, that she wants him and this. It wasn’t her intention (she only wanted a kiss), but everything has spiralled now, out of her hands and she wants to go with it, give into her curiosity, her desires that have lurked in the dark corners of her mind.

His touches are tentative at first, the lightest of pressures under the warmth of his hand over the thinness of her gown as he watches himself, tracing the curve with his fingers, mapping the fullness with his hand until it’s too much. Jeyne takes his hand and pressing it firmer, showing him how to grip her breast, what feels good. “I won’t break,” she says, and gasps, arcing up against his hand when his thumb brushes a peaked nipple, circling over it again as she catches the grin on his lips.

“No, I don’t think you will,” Robb says as he settles on his knees between her splayed legs as he starts to pull at her gown, massaging her breast in his hand, slow and curious, thumb rubbing maddeningly over her nipple, sensitive even through the cloth. It feels different, a hand not her own touching her like this, one larger and rougher, one that doesn’t know what to do until she shows him; he learns quickly, she notes, or maybe it’s just the feel of him, pressing her to the bed, the sharp scent of him invading her senses (he smells like iron, like blood--she’s not sure he can ever wash it clean, scrub out the war that’s left marks deep in his skin--but underneath, he smells of pine and the deep, musky scent of earth, and something that tastes of ice, cold at the back of her throat; she thinks it’s the North). It makes her heart beat faster and harder, her skin flushing hot, tightening around her, holding her in as Jeyne feels ready to fly apart.

Robb ducks his head down to kiss along the edge of her shoulder, his lips following the path of the cloth as he brushes it away, stripping her bare, save for his touches. “I wish I could see you,” he says, pulling her gown further, his gaze lingering on hers as he rolls the cloth between his fingers. Jeyne feels it brush across her skin as he pulls it away, sliding her arms free--the moon is bright, but it only casts shadows, blurring his features in the dark. “What you must look like in the sunlight, all this bare skin,” Robb whispers, breath working a shiver out of her, his words hitting her deep under her skin (it almost feels like too much, can hardly think past it), and Jeyne wants to roll up against him, arch into his touches more.

What he can’t see, he feels; with his mouth over her collarbone, around the curve of her breast, his tongue darting out to taste her, his teeth nipping until her body rolls under his, seeking his touches, the sharp little tugs of pain that leave her gasping. Robb touches her like he can’t get enough, like he’s savoring her, his eyes casting upwards every so often to catch her reaction, to watch her face when he brushes over a spot that makes her gasp.

She’s left naked when he peels her gown away, the material bunched up around her waist as Robb dips down over her, kissing the newly exposed places, mouth lingering on her breasts, around them and under them, tongue rounding the curve, always near where she wants him, but never there, too focused on exploring everywhere at once. Jeyne hears a whine and surprised it came from her, that she made that high, keening sound and the low rumble that followed it when she tightened her jaw. Jeyne draws him where she wants him, growing impatient and insisting with her writhing body and her hands at the back of his neck; Robb takes direction well, his mouth hot and wet, descending over the peak of her nipple, sucking it behind his lips.

She lets out a soft cry, shuddering out of her mouth on a shaky breath when his tongue laves over the tip. Jeyne pulls at his hair, tries to keeps his mouth down and working at her when she feels him let off, lifting his head to look at her, watching her with an intent gaze, a curl around the corners of his lips (she wonders what he sees, what she must look like to him, his proper and prim nurse come undone, a different sort of creature in the dark). Robb lets her pull him back, breathing over her other nipple, his hand gripping hard at her waist over her gown as she bows her back and rises to meet his mouth.

Jeyne lets her hands drift down over his shoulders and back, a frenzy building up inside her, spurring her on until her fingers curl in the cloth of his small clothes, slung low on his hips as she pushes them down further until she’s yanking them down, brushing her hands up the back of his thighs, over his ass. She feels bold trailing her fingers over his hip, flattening her palm against his stomach as she pushes it lower, until she feels him in her hand. Robb bites at her nipple, quick and sharp, the sensation shooting a scorching thrill of pleasure through her as his body bows against her, whining as he pulls off. Their eyes lock as she lets his small clothes pool around his knees, feeling his cock hot and hard and weighty, the skin softer and more delicate than she thought it would be as she grasps his cock, stroking down the length as he jerks against her.

Robb curses under his breath and Jeyne thinks he’s trying to keep a hold on himself, wrangle control of his body, but he groans and thrusts into her hand. “Does that feel alright?” she asks him, dragging her hand up, enjoying the sound the whine that escapes his lips, feeling playful as she strokes him curiously, experimenting with holding firmer and moving her hand faster. “How do you like it?”

“Gods,” he breathes out, then his hand is around her wrist, pulling at her hand, uncurling her fingers. Robb grabs her other wrist, and pins them both to the bed above her head, hovering over her. “Stop.”

“Why?” she asks, rolling her bottom lip between her teeth as she lifts her knees up around his hips, rocking herself up against him.

His hands grip her wrists tighter and he leans in close, touching his forehead to hers. “Because I will spend too soon if you keep doing that,” he says lowly, a grin ghosting on his lips.

Jeyne giggles against his mouth. “I suppose I will stop if you cease teasing me,” she says, arching her neck to kiss him, then angling her lips toward his ear. “I want you to fuck me,” she whispers to him, indulging in the recklessness of her words, how bold she feels having said it (relieved to have said it, to have admitted it without her shame consuming her--the shame she never felt when she should have).

She feels the shudder the goes through Robb, the way his fingernails pinch at her skin for just a moment, the way bones in her wrists bend to the pressure of his hands; his eyes are fever-bright and fixed on her, fervid in his attention when she pulls back, his stare making her want to kiss him again, press herself against him until he felt the wantonness writhing under her skin--he doesn’t say anything, just lets go of her wrists and nods.

(This is happening, she thinks, the sudden gravity of it real and immediate, and her stomach gives a lurch and she nearly throws her arms around Robb to hold on, ground herself until her heartbeat slowed, until this wave of anxiety subsided. We're dancing on the edge of disaster, her thoughts a swirl of emotion thinking of what this leads to, imagining her belly swelling, imagining a child--no, Jeyne thinks, tucking it away, burying it, promising herself she'll manage if it ever comes to pass, that she can manage, refusing to let it stop her.)

Robb moves quicker after that, sitting up as his hands grab at her gown in a bunch around her waist, tugging harshly; he urges her hips up and drags the cloth over them, catching her small clothes in the process as he pulls her clothes from her body, down her legs as he scoots near the edge of the bed. He kicks his own small clothes off the rests of the way and tosses her gown to the floor along with it.

He moves up her leg, his beard scratching as he drags wet, open-mouthed kisses that start up at her ankle and marks his trail, dotting her calf, behind her knee, up the inside of her thigh. He moves urgently, but Jeyne wonders if she gave him the time, if he would kiss her everywhere, if he would try to cover every inch of her with with his mouth, leave no patch of skin untouched (she wishes they did have the time, but this is all they have, a few stolen hours in the night). He moves up to press the curve of his mouth in the dip of her hip, his teeth striking out and biting gently as he sucks at her skin; he’ll leave a mark there and it’ll feel hot, like a brand under clothes, a slice of pain when she presses it, a reminder that he was here when he’s gone.

Robb noses at her stomach, working his mouth over her skin there before he drifts lower instead of upwards as Jeyne had expected, ready for him to crawl the rest of the way up her body and cover it with his own. She watches him and he pauses, holding still as their gazes meet; he seems to lack the confidence, the bravado he wears layered thick like warpaint on his face when he looks up at her, an uncertainty in his gaze she’s never seen before. Robb distracts her from her thoughts when he runs his hands down the insides of her thighs, parting them wider, feeling the air cool where she lay exposed and vulnerable; she doesn’t notice when it disappears, replaced with a look she’s grown accustomed to, the glinting of his eyes, hungry in their narrowed focus directed at her, always at her.

He turns away from her, slipping his hands under her knees as Jeyne lets him pull them up and fan them out, her body malleable to his hands as he slinks lower. She's unsure of why he's hovering down between her legs and she wants to ask him, but she watches him move instead, willing to wait and see what he does. Jeyne feels a clench inside herself, in the pit of her stomach, and it flips as she tries to catch her breath when she realizes how must be able to see all of her, what he can make out in the dark (she opened her legs first and let him fit himself between them, let him pull them apart now, stretched until she lay bare in ways she hadn’t thought possible, feeling his eyes on her, cutting through the center of her). Her cheeks burn and she feels it rushing down the sides of her neck, hot over her chest. She wants to pull her legs together, to close them, but she finds that they only squeeze around Robb, his shoulders impeding her as his face drops closer to her cunt--she feels him breathe out across her, warmer than the air, but she shudders all the same.

Jeyne’s hips jerk up at his first touch and she flushes harder, embarrassed at her body’s reaction, at how much she wants and how that much is made plain as she chews on her bottom lip, her hands finding the sheets, grasping at them, yanking them up while the tips of Robb’s fingers stroke gently along the edge of her folds. Her body shifts, squirming uncomfortably as he continues his exploration; he holds her still with a hand on her hip as she feels his touch pushing at her lips, spreading them apart to reveal her further, running his fingers along places only she has touched, the barest hints of hesitation in his strokes (she wants to direct his hand, show him how to touch her, where to rub until she’s gasping for him, but she worries he’ll bat her away, that he’s not ready to stop scrutinizing her, memorizing her, feeling his own way around her body and she decides she will give him this time).

“Gods, you’re wet,” Robb says, his voice low, careful not to speak too loud; she wonders if it’s because he worries his voice might crack, and he lifts his eyes to hers, wide and stunned. She hisses when his thumb grazes her nub, when his fingers tease until she gasps when two of his fingers slip inside her, thicker and not at all like her own, a gentle stretch within her. “So slick I just slip inside you,” he says as he starts to move his fingers, his voice a soft hush, almost reverent despite the unrestrained he way speaks, a hint of surprise. “Is this because of me? Are you wet for me?”

She doesn’t want to answer him, doesn’t want to give him the satisfaction, but she hears herself whimper out a quiet, “yes.”

Robb grins up at her, the crook of his mouth smug with his eyes almost sparkling with delight, with heat. “So wet for me, Jeyne,” he says, his voice stronger, richer, the sound of it curling around her ear like his tongue, a filthiness about the way the words roll out of his mouth on a deep groan.

She feels his fingers spread inside her, pulling apart and pushing back together, rubbing at the sides of her cunt instead of up where she wants him, stretching instead of stroking. It doesn’t hurt, he doesn’t jab or poke her, but he doesn’t touch where it feels good, doesn’t move his fingers how she does to herself; she learned through practice, exploring her own body in the night, touching herself under her small clothes until she knew herself, knew how her body worked--I could show him, she thinks as her hand reaches for his wrist, stilling his hand.

“Curl your fingers upwards and stroke,” she says, pausing when she isn’t sure how he’ll react, but he watches her attentively, “not stretch.” She wishes she could slip her fingers in beside his and show him, pull his out and push hers in (she shivers to think of it, spreading her legs and letting him watch as she touches herself), but there’s no time and she settles for making the motion over the back of his hand, hoping he feels the pulsing wave of pressure and can mimic it. “There’s a spot I like, if you can hook your fingers just so--” she curls the tips of her fingers in between the gaps of his, pressing into the top of his palm “--and press and rub in soft circles, you could touch it.”

Jeyne reaches down to touch his face and wonders if he feels the tentativeness in the gesture, the tremble in her fingertips when they make contact with his skin, an apology sitting heavy on her tongue. She worries what he must feel at her sudden burst of instruction, if she wounded his pride (it wouldn't be the first time), if he'd ignore or brush off her direction, but he leans into her hand and she feels the contented hum working up his throat. He smiles up at her, turning his head to kiss her palm. Jeyne's not sure what to make of it; it's not what she expected, not his easy compliance, or the eagerness, but it rushes to her head, making everything feel softer, black around the edges as her heart thumps in her ears, a warmth building under her skin.

Robb’s fingers start to move again, slow at first, careful like he doesn’t want her to feel his struggles until he falls into a rhythm. Jeyne encourages him with a moan, with her shifting hips and she feels him move with more confidence, stroking her faster, feels his fingers curling like she taught him, pressing up firmly and rubbing until she gasps, grabbing at the back of his head. “Does that feel good?” Robb asks, pulling back his fingers, then thrusting them back in again, hooking them up into her until her hips rise off bed and meet his hand. Her fingers tug at his hair in response, and he laughs, pressing a kiss to her inner thigh. “Do you like that?”

Jeyne whines in response, arching her back and wants to pull him up, feel more than just his fingers inside her, to kiss that smug grin off his face whenever he elicits a reaction from her. But he ducks his head down and kisses her at the top over her thatch of dark, curling hair, while his fingers move inside her. Her breath gets caught in her throat when his mouth moves further down and Jeyne doesn’t know what he’s doing, but it feels good with his breath brushing over her, the feeling pooling warm and low in her stomach, stretching out through her limbs. His kisses split the center of her with his lips, pressing down over that nub that makes her hips grind up against his mouth, his beard rasping along her sensitive skin when she rubs up against his chin, feeling the scrape of it on inner thighs, wanting more, captivated by the sight of head between her legs. He kisses lower as his fingers slip from inside her, his tongue darting out to taste her in their stead. She feels it swirling up through her folds, brushing over nub, sending a hot spark through her as her body bows outwards, taut like a string pulled tight, her fingers scratching against his scalp and she cries out louder than she intended, louder than she should have; she can feel Robb’s mouth curving against her cunt, imagines his smile until she feels his tongue, pushing inside her.

She feels her body edging on release, the tension winding up her body, coiling tight as her legs start to shake around his shoulders, locking him in. She doesn't want him to stop; she wants his mouth, to keep it on her, his tongue licking and lips sucking until she can't take it anymore, until she stops thinking, but she feels their time dwindling, creeping across her skin as her anxiousness competes with the tipping pleasure that threatens to consume her. Jeyne wants what she came here for.

“Robb,” she says, pulling at him, at his hair, trying to pull him up and tug his body over hers. “Stop, please, come here.” He licks over her nub, circling it with his tongue in a clever, wicked move that nearly sends her over the edge, her cunt aching for more, but he lets up, lifting his mouth away as he pushes himself up. For a king, he’s surprisingly good at following orders.

He crawls over her as Jeyne draws her legs up. His hand drags over her side as he moves, from hip to her breast, cupping her in his hand, thumb stroking over her nipple as he lowers himself over her. He’s heavy above her when he presses her to the bed. “Hello,” he says, grinning down at her.

Jeyne giggles, reaching up to rest her hand against his cheek. “Hello,” she says, her fingers sliding to the back of his neck, hauling him down to her until she’s kissing the grin away. His lips are wet from her cunt and she licks them, tasting herself, briny, like the sea, saltier when she curls her tongue into his mouth, tangling with his, his chin damp where it rests against hers.

Robb breaks the kiss, pulling back as his forehead falls on hers, his hand sliding up to cup her neck, his thumb dragging along her jaw. “Is this alright?” he asks, looking at her like they can stop now, as if they’re not already here; her knees up around his hips, her breasts naked and pressed up against his chest, his cock hard as the tip drags wetly against her thigh, his hips giving tiny jerks, ready like she is, slick between her legs.

“Stop that,” she says, tilting her head to brush her mouth across his. Jeyne fits her hand between them, stokes it down his chest, over his stomach until she wraps it around his cock; he thrusts into her hand at the sudden touch and bites down on his lip. “I don’t know how many times I have to say yes,” she whispers.

“I need to be sure,” Robb says, nuzzling her cheek, her neck, kissing behind her ear. “I want to be sure.”

She touches her fingers gently over the length of him as she draws him to her, angling him as she lifts her hips, feeling him pressed against her cunt. “I want to, please,” Jeyne says, looking up at him, suddenly struck by the blue of his eyes, bright even in the dull gloom of the room. She reaches to kiss him again, she doesn’t think she could ever kiss him enough. She can’t help but shake, feels it twisting in her stomach, a nervous quaking erupting up through her.

Jeyne feels Robb slipping through her folds as his mouth breaks from hers, his cock nudging at her cunt as she draws her hand away and wraps her arm over his back, pulling herself closer. They stare at each other, neither of them knowing how to move; his fingers brush stray hairs off her face, stroking down to trace her mouth and when he kisses her, she thrusts upwards instead, wrapping her legs tight as she lets him slide within her, feels him deep inside, throbbing around him as his kisses swallow her cry (it’s over). Robb holds himself still for a moment, buried inside her as they breathe together; her fingertips brush over the scar on his shoulder, puckered and pink and still healing, but it’s a clean, straight line. She smiles, a bit of pride bursting in her chest, leaning up to run her mouth over it (she rocks up against him as she thinks, I put you back together and you’re taking me apart).

He starts moving after--slow at first, long dragging thrusts that she twists her hips to meet, that steal her breath, but she urges him with her nails in his back, her legs coiling tighter around him to feel him go faster, until he complies, picking up his pace and moving in quicker thrusts. He stretches her, but it doesn’t hurt, not like she expected, not like she had been warned (maidenheads break, rip and get torn up; she always imagined it as a violent, gory act--they’re taken, claimed, not given--she must always keep it intact, her mother always told her, reminding her again with sharp yanks to her hair as she brushed it that night after the stable boy); it twinges, but it’s not a sharp pain that hurts every time he moves, just a soft burn that quickly gives way to pleasure, aching in her cunt as she meets his thrusts, whimpering in the back of her throat. She touches his face and knows he’s not hers and she’s not his, and there’s a war that’s calling him back and a girl who has a claim on him that Jeyne can never have, can never reach, but their hands don’t stop touching, their lips don’t stop kissing, stealing pieces of each other they have no right to take.

He kisses down her jaw, nipping at her skin as he grips her hips, fingertips digging in, bruising her flesh and pressing hard over bone. She inhales sharply, her breath jerking in her lungs as the gentleness in Robb seems to have snapped. Jeyne feels his touches grow rougher, his movements more forceful, bending her body to his as he takes her. I shouldn’t lie down with wolves, she thinks, but here she is bedding one, letting him hold her down and bite at her throat as she lays it bare, as she unfurls her body under his. Jeyne arches up as her teeth (they feel sharp now, with edges like blades, sharp like his) catch on his lip, biting as she whispers, “harder,” into his mouth. He does as she asks and she’s beginning to get used to it, she’s beginning to love it as she pants against mouth, taking his harder, faster thrusts and feeling the tension start to build again.

He lifts his head away, turn as if he were about to kiss the other side of her neck, or somewhere, anywhere he can reach, but Robb seizes up above her in the movement--he winces and bites down on a groan that sounds painful, stretching out his arm above her head. He thrusts again and Jeyne feels his body start to shake, and she stills, grabbing his face in her hands as she pulls her legs tight around him, holding him inside her. “Are you alright?” she asks. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s my shoulder, I think,” he says, rolling it back and gritting his teeth.

Jeyne lets go of his face and brings her hand over his back, feeling the puckered scar where the arrow went through under her fingertips. “Oh,” she says, tracing the line of it until the pain in his face softens; she forgot about the unused muscles, the strain this must have put on them, pulling when they weren’t ready to be stretched so much. “I didn’t realize--I didn’t think. We can stop. We don’t have to--”

“No!” Robb says, his voice rising suddenly. “No,” he repeats, his voice softening over his outburst. “I can fix this. Hold on,” he says, grabbing her hip and wrapping an arm under her back, lifting her as they roll together until Jeyne is looking down at him, slipping down on his cock from above. She gasps at the new angle, with him hitting new spots inside her, feeling him go deeper. Robb grins up at her. “Better?”

“I should be asking you that,” she says. Jeyne moves on top of him, urged on by his hands, twisting her hips, lifting herself and rocking down, testing out this new position, experimenting with ways to move her body. She likes this, the way he looks up at her, his hands resting on her hips, watching as she fucks herself on his cock, controlling the pace with her hands pressed to his chest, leveraging herself as she moves, going as fast or slow as she wants. She feels his gaze, flicking up and down her body, the heat of it hitting her hard in the spine as she thrusts down and up, the intensity of it watching where they join, where he disappears inside her. “Is this alright? Will this bother your shoulder?” she asks, trying to keep a hold on her tone, but it sounds breathless to her own ears, her voice coming out thick, a daring sense of pleasure and excitement running through her with how high she lifts herself before she drops down.

“No,” he says, letting out a shuddering breath, his eyes following hers as she rises up again, his thumbs nudging at her hips, urging her to swivel them back. “I love watching you--” He swallows hard, his throat jumping as he moans. “--my cock slipping in and out of you, how you ride me.” And she was, riding him, rocking down and moving with him as he looks up at her. He didn't say it out loud as she had expected him to, whisper it in her ear like the filth spilling from his lips--he didn't need to, it was plain on his face, in his eyes too bare and raw for her to take, lit up with want and desire as his gaze raked her body, watching her movements intently like he was trying to memorize them, remember her.

She can't tear her eyes away either, even if she thinks she should (this would only make it harder) but she's drawn to the way his fingers dig into her hips, the shape of his hands, long-tapered fingers and broad palms, the rough feel of them on her skin. Jeyne watches the red flush spreading across his face and neck, grins at the mark she left blooming purple on his throat and feels the hard planes of his body under hers, coiled with muscle and not much else; war made him lean and hungry for contact, she thinks. She traces the jagged lines of scars, raised and mapping out across his skin, marks of war telling stories she'll never get to hear, never get to know (there will be more scars that she'll never touch); she memorizes him, too, just like this, just as she shouldn’t.

It's only for a moment, she only has him for a night and she wishes she could drag it out, stretch time like a muscle, lose herself in a world she made up inside her head; with no war and no kings and no oaths, where it could be the two of them in bed, with nothing waiting for them outside but the rising dawn and they wouldn't have to greet it, they could just stay.

Jeyne thinks Robb must be drawing closer to release; she's never seen a man spend, she isn't sure, but he's cutting bruises into her hips with his grip, breath coming in sharp, hard pants as he tries to lift his hips and thrust deeper into her, faster, despite the angle and his shoulder, despite her weight on him. She wants to arch into it, rock her hips until she sends him over the edge, but she’s not there yet (it’s building, she feels it, the steady ache that grows larger, hotter, clenching in her stomach, in her cunt--but not fast enough). She draws her hand from his chest and slips her fingers between her folds, pressing hard against herself, rubbing as she falls into habit and familiarity. It helps, she finds as she moans behind clenched teeth, her eyes slipping closed as her pleasure rushes up her legs, through her chest, cresting like a wave--and pulled back when Robb takes her hand away.

“No,” he says, and she opens her eyes, if only to narrow them, but Robb quickly replaces her fingers with his own, circling her nub delicately, then pressing firmly until she gasps and he grins. “Let me.” He picks himself up then, pushing away from the bed and masking the pain under his sharp grin. She thinks he means to kiss her, but ducks his head quickly, bowing his back until she feels his mouth on her ribs, under her breast. His tongue traces the bone and trails upward, curling around the underside of her breast--she cries out before she can bite down on it when he sucks her nipple into mouth, while his fingers never stop moving against her, his other hand climbing up her spine.

“Couldn’t stand just watching,” he mutters between pressing kisses up her chest, the side of her neck, behind her ear. He wraps his arm around her back, pulling them together tighter until she’s pressed up against him again. “Needed to touch, hold you when you fell apart,” is what she makes out of nonsense he whispers in her ear, his voice strained as he pants against her skin, gasping out, “Jeyne,” when he reaches her mouth.

She feels it starting, the quick rise of it as they move together in shallow, little thrusts, too close for much else as they breathe in the other’s breath. Robb’s fingers barely move stuck between them, but she feels it, the touch of his fingertips, and grinds against it and down on his cock. A whimper at the back of her throat builds and she can’t seem to hold herself up anymore--she draws her face from his and falls against Robb, her face tucked in the crook of his sweaty neck as his hand stroke down her back, soothing as if he means to coax her through it. Her hips jerk on their own accord, matching Robb’s frenzied rhythm, no longer hers to control, pressing on as her head fogs and her vision goes black, drowning in the sound of their breaths, her heartbeat pounding like a war drum, echoing through her chest.

It hits her like a hammer, knocking her back to life as it steals her breath and yet, she can still cry out on the exhale burning through her lungs as she shakes, feeling a warmth rippling through her, making her cunt throb and ache. She muffles the sound it against Robb’s neck, sinking her teeth into his flesh as she claws at his back, feeling his blood seep under her fingernails and clenching tight around him. He growls (she hears it now) when he spends inside her and she feels it sticky and hot and dripping down as he moves through it, sending shudders up her spine and spasms through her limbs; his hand slips from between them and cups her hip, careful over the soreness he left from holding on too hard as his thrusts slow, his arm wrapping tighter over her back as his forehead comes to rest on her collarbone when he stops.

Jeyne waits for her heart beat to calm down, to catch her breath before slipping off her knees, trembling as she moves her legs, extending them out; she winces at the pain from sitting pinned too long in one position, at the ache between her thighs, pleasure spiking sharply as she wraps them over Robb’s back, holding him still inside her as she winds herself around him. “Sorry,” she hears him says, barely above a whisper and his voice cracks on it. “Sorry, sorry.” He burns his apologies into her skin with his mouth, his tongue, and his teeth.

She doesn’t know what he’s apologizing for, what he feels he needs to make a amends for with more kisses, but she combs her fingers through his hair, damp with sweat as his scalp radiates heat. “It’s alright,” she tells him as his lips find her jaw. Jeyne pushes Robb back onto the bed when he slides his mouth over hers; she feels his cock slips from her, tugged by the movement, dragging wetly on her thigh as her cunt clenches on emptiness, hurting like a strained muscle. She slide her legs down his, keeping them tangled as she pulls him to his side, rolling him with her as he sucks at her bottom lip.

Jeyne breaks the kiss, but can’t bear to look at his eyes, not sure she is ready to see what she’ll find there. “There’s nothing you have to be sorry for,” she murmurs, curling against him (she's not sorry, even if she thinks she should be, even if she's fearful of what the sun might bring, she's not sorry). She tucks her head under his chin like a coward, hiding her face, trying to get lost in the way their damp skin feels pressed up against each other, how sticks as it cools, drying.

Robb wraps his arms over her, clutching her close, and says no more; she wonders if there’s something wrong with her that she feels grateful at his silence, but in the dark it’s easy to shove that thought aside if she tries hard enough, listening to the sound of him breathing, ear pressed to his chest as she counts the beats of his heart. It’s comforting, in a strange way, to hear the sounds of life, his apologies quieted as his breathing falls into an even rhythm and his cheek falls against the top of her head. His hold tightens, then loosens as he falls asleep faster than her; Jeyne's limbs go languid as she relaxes, fatigue laden in her bones.

It’s easy to drift off, to be lulled into slumber and slip into a dream, feeling almost like she’s floating yet heavy, stuck in between until she’s running. The forest flies past her in a blur, green and lush and she’s breathing it in, taking it inside her; the forest shows her where to go, where to run, how to weave through its trees (she’s run so far from the sea, the forest calling her away). Dirt sticks under her feet (they’re paws, she realizes, thick and padded and black, with claws sharp) as she kicks it up, digging into the earth. She presses on; Jeyne pushes herself harder, panting out her breath as she seeks (hunts), alert and salivating, as if she could already taste the blood in her mouth, her jaws poised and ready to snap.

Sunlight streams through the trees, blinding her and she blinks, her eyes fluttering--and she’s Jeyne again, not a wolf. Her eyes crack open in slow increments, sleep still trying to keep a hold on her with her head still clouded and her limbs soft and useless as she tries to move them--to stretch them, to pull the sleep from her body. Where she lays her cheek is warm, rising and falling, and her eyes fly open when a finger traces over her temple, brushing her hair back. The stone walls come into focus, brightened by the sun streaming in through the window and her head clears--she can hear the sounds of people milling about the yard, walking the halls, the castle alive with the start of a new day. Jeyne awakens all at once, jolting up in bed, shivering when she pulls away and the cool air gusts over her bare skin, her heart seizing in her chest and aching as it starts to race.

Robb’s fingers trail up her spine as he sits up behind her, kissing her shoulder, her neck, but Jeyne can’t find it in her to melt to his touches, feeling frozen solid. “Good morning,” he says, combing through her hair, brushing it aside to kiss across her back--kisses that hurt, that make her skin feel itchy and tight as she wonders how her breath can burn inside her throat, when she feels so cold on the outside. Jeyne pushes him away, hand firm on his chest, her other one contending with his grasping hands trying to pull her back as she untangles herself from the sheets, from Robb, from this bed and the night before.

“What’s wrong?” he asks, when she breaks free, standing on her own two feet, shivering and naked as she wraps her arms around herself.

She lifts her gaze to look at him and he’s staring at her, a panic in his eyes that surely matches her own with a furrow in his brow, but intense and blue and for all the wrong reasons; his hands reach out to her, grasping nothing but air, bringing to mind his wolf, chained up in the yard (she wonders if the wolf in her bed had anything to do with her dreams, trembling at the memory of how the fur felt over her skin, how her muscles felt twisted and pulled, rebuilt to fit her new frame). She thinks he might pounce on her and drag her back, coil around her until she stays, and she can’t, she can’t.

“You shouldn’t have let me sleep for so long,” she says as she digs her nails into her arms, trying to make herself concentrate, to focus on finding a way out without being caught, without being seen, but all she can think about is that sun is shining in through the window and how high it is, how far its risen. It’s nearly midday, she thinks, the thought churning in her stomach and she feels ill. Elenya would be awake by now, she knows, and would have found her bed empty, no Jeyne to be found--Jeyne has always tried to be there before she woke, and left after she fell asleep. There was never any need for Elenya to be complicit in any of this, I could keep my own secrets, Jeyne thinks, and wonders where Elenya went running to when she woke up alone, if she went to Raynald or if she went to their mother, if anyone is out looking for her now.

“Why?” he says, and Jeyne wonders how he can be so thick, how he can ignore what’s staring him in the face so resolutely, so stubbornly. “You were sleeping so peacefully, it seemed wrong to wake you.” She spies the start of a grin on his face, lips curling back to reveal his teeth. “Besides, I liked the look of you nestled up against me, in between my sheets, your hair everywhere,” he says, leaning forward and cocking his head, his eyes leaving hers to trail down her body. What you must look like in the sunlight, all this bare skin, she remembers he said, wishing he could see her as he kissed over her skin in the dark, peeling away the rest of her clothes. Jeyne drops her arms, a sharp spike of anger compelling her--are you taking your fill, Robb? she wants to ask as she feels his eyes rove over her naked body, staring at him in spite.

The bedding dips low on his hips every time he moves, but her eyes are drawn to the marks on his neck, the shape of her mouth and teeth bruising the pale skin, turned purple in the night; she wonders what his back must look like, red streaked and clawed up from her fingernails. She knows her own body is covered as well, feels the pain of them, still tender, marking points on her skin like dots on a map--marking where Robb bit her, kissed her, how he held tight to her hips. This all that was supposed to remain, the marks they left on each other, like battle scars; there, but eventually fading with time until it was just a memory, a story neither of them told. They weren’t supposed to see each other like this, in the bright light of day, raw and exposed with their layers stripped (stripped, like she felt, stripped to the bone, his eyes like knives carving away her flesh)--she was supposed to be gone by now, and yet, she can’t make her feet move.

“Come back to bed, you’re freezing,” he says suddenly, and she remembers the cold, forgotten she was shaking. Jeyne drags her eyes back to his and finds them full of a concern she doesn’t trust, despite the genuineness in his gaze--there’s a heat she can’t deny, a pleading to lure her in.

“No,” she says and looks away before she can see his reaction, wrapping her arms around herself again, covering what she can of herself, rubbing her hands over her arms as she starts to move around the bed, eyes cast downward. “I need to get dressed.” She finds her gown in a wrinkled heap on the floor and picks it up in her hands. “I need to leave.” It’s torn in places, the fabric frayed or simply ripped. She hadn’t realized how rough they had been in their haste to pull it from her body. At least it was still whole, at least she hadn’t told him to tear it in two in a fit of madness. She turns it over in her hands, until she can slip her arms into it and pull it over her head, yanking it down to cover her where it can.

Robb looks stricken when she finally brings herself to look at him, smoothing the cloth down over her body and realizing it’s inadequate, still indecent, the tears making it worse. “Gods,” she says, and laughs; it sounds hollow to her own ears. “I should have been gone before you woke. I should have been gone before anyone was awake.”

Robb looks at her like he want to spring forth and grab her by the arms, his hands twisting in the sheets as his jaw jumps in his cheek. “You meant to leave me to wake alone,” he says, voice low and rough through his grinding teeth.

“Yes,” Jeyne says, watching as he flinches, his eyes opening wide after, looking as if she gutted him, stuck a knife in his stomach and twisted it. “It was only for a night.”

“That’s all?” he asks as he inches closer, sliding across to the edge of the bed at a creeping pace, almost hesitant as his eyes never leave hers, that same wretched expression set in his face. Jeyne knows she should leave before he finds his confidence and gets to his feet, that she can’t stay here and wait for him to touch her again, but she doesn’t know where she could run, what corridor to take where she wouldn’t be seen, if anyone isn’t already pacing the hall outside. “Just one night?”

She sighs. “That’s all there could ever be,” she says, feeling like she has said it a thousand times, repeating it over and over in her head.

It would not do well to act as if anything more will happen, she thinks as her hands shake (from the cold, she thinks; from her racing pulse, her heart beating too hard in her chest, her hitching breath as her nervousness take hold) and her body aches to run out already, thinking of someone catching her here, seeing them like this. Her instincts scream at her to go, that she can make it--no one knows this castle better than she does, every nook and cranny and secret hideaway; she learned them all playing as a child, but she can’t turn invisible, or cloak herself in shadows, or distract the eye; she knows it's too late and she wants to blame him.

His legs fall over the side of the bed and his feet land on the floor, but he doesn’t stand--instead, Robb makes a sudden stilted motion and Jeyne steps back, jerking away; he raises his arm and drops it to his side in the same breath, like he was trying to reach out and thought better of it, seeing her reaction. “Why?” he asks. Jeyne closes her eyes and listens to her breathing, trying to soothe the edge away in a number of breaths, but Robb keeps poking at her, prodding her with ridiculous questions he should know the answers to; he keeps crawling under her skin, he keeps trying to unravel her reason. “Why is this so impossible?”

“Because you’re leaving,” she blurts out as her eyes snap open.

He’s taken aback when she looks at him and she wonders if she shouted it; it burst forth from her throat and left her chest heaving, she might have. Jeyne sucks in deep breaths that do little to calm her, but give her the longevity to speak again. “You’re better now--not perfect--but on the mend, and you’ll be going soon, off to steal another castle.” She laughs. “Or fight another battle or whatever your advisors have planned. You’ll be leaving and I’ll be staying, to face whatever consequences my mother has in store for me because there’s no doubting my mother knows, Robb, there’s nothing she doesn’t know--gods, the whole bloody castle probably knows by now.” It all threatens to spill forth, every fear, every worry tumbling out of her mouth and she can’t stop it.

“It is impossible, I know that and I didn’t want anything more...” She trails off, stopping to take in a sharp inhale, casting her eyes downward as her hands roll into fists, feeling the pinch of her own fingernails in her palms. “I don’t want any more from you and I don’t regret what happened, but I’m scared and I--”

“Marry me.”

“--don’t know--what?” Jeyne thinks perhaps she misheard him, not believing that the words marry me could have possibly left his mouth, not in any seriousness.

“I said, marry me,” he repeats.

She laughs this time; she can’t help it bursting out of her throat like a nervous tremor. “Don’t be absurd,” Jeyne says as Robb watches her with a growing determination in his eyes, a resoluteness settling there and Jeyne starts to feel the gravity, the weight of what he’s considering.

“I’m not,” he says, genuine hope into his bleeding expression as a soft smile curls up the corners of his mouth, opening up his hands and laying out his palms, resting them on his thighs as if he’s waiting for her to take them; is this his solution? she wonders, something he'd been thinking from the start, turning it over in his head as she slept.

“Robb, we can’t.”

“Why not? We can go to your mother and your uncle right now, and--”

“You’re promised to another,” she hisses, her tone harsher than she intended, cutting. “Or have you forgotten?” She shouldn't have to tell him, to be the one to remember oaths and honor when they're not her own, not hers to keep.

Robb looks away from her, head hanging as stares at his hands, his shoulders tense. “I haven’t forgotten,” he whispers, forcing himself to look up at her again, to hold her gaze.

There’s an uncomfortable shift in his body when he does, nearly folding in on himself as his hands clench around his palms as misery flashes in his eyes, shame flushing in his cheeks. Jeyne almost wants to touch him, reach out and cup his face, rub away the lines with her fingertips, but then he transforms before her eyes, biting his lip until his jaw sets firm, pulling himself and straightening his back. It’s like he puts on a mask and slips into a new skin, arrogance settling into the lines of his face--a cold, expressionless sort--and Jeyne isn’t entirely sure she recognizes the man who sits in front of her (almost, she thinks, clinging to the look in his eyes, the one that betrays him, full of earnestness and sorrow).

“Promises can be broken,” he says, voice full and rich, a steeliness in his tone (it still sounds like a plea to her ears, a child’s excuse).

It leaves her speechless for a moment, her tongue fumbling in her mouth, searching for words she can't find. His eyes remain fixated on hers, cavalier and melancholy all at once; Robb refuses to look away and Jeyne meets his stare, holding his gaze until he backs down (until he takes it back), but he never does. He leaves it between them, leaving it for her to respond to--to scream at or slap or condemn him, to accept with a cool silence--he waits for her, daring her with his eyes.

“You can’t,” she says, and it feels weak, a useless thing to say, so easily brushed aside when he knows he shouldn’t, he was taught better (no, she could say; I don’t want to marry you, she could tell him, but he would look her in the eye and say, liar, and neither of them could deny the truth of it, so the words stay tucked behind her lips, the lies can’t can’t bring herself to say).

“I can,” he says, his tone neither light nor flippant like she expected, just firm and Jeyne knows there’s no changing his mind, there’s no getting him to see reason--her time at his bedside made her well-aware of how stubborn her could be, just as willful as her.

He makes it sound simple, and she thinks it would be, to say yes, to agree; it rolls uncomfortably under her skin, how easy it would be, the feeling weighing her down and trapping her instead of freeing, and Jeyne wants to move her feet, shake it off--but his eyes would follow her, knowing, and it wouldn’t do a thing (she would still feel like a wolf stuck in a pen, pacing--it’s a thought that catches in her chest until she has to shake it off, shake it out of her head). Simpler than running with nowhere to hide, than to face her mother with her torn gown and the marks on her neck, and it edges on bitterness thinking of it, tart on her tongue and choking her breath in her throat. It’s a practical solution to this predicament she’s found herself in, this mess she’s made. They could face her together, with the comfort of his fingers twined in hers, saving her honor like a gallant knight in songs (only for now, Jeyne thinks, he can only save her from this, and then what, where do we go after? her thoughts are insistent, pressing at the corners of her mind until her head hurts; can you protect us? she wants to ask, once I’ve wed you and turned my family traitor, could you keep us safe?).

Jeyne hates that he makes it so easy, so tempting to agree, to save her own skin, to let him lay down his honor for hers and be her shield (to keep him, a small voice whispers in her head). She hates that she can’t hate him, when he leaves it in her hands, cajoling her with promises and pleading eyes, tugging at the weaknesses inside of her (she tries to imagine it, marrying Robb, but it always comes out different in her head--a life that could never be, without wars and oaths, where she would have just met the boy who was to be Lord of Winterfell, not held the King In The North as he bled in her arms).

The yes almost flies out of her mouth, but she bites down hard on it, tightening her jaw and lifting her chin, straightening her spine as she steels herself. She feels rigid, set like stone, and she hates it, how she hides herself (she misses the feeling of last night, of the nights before, of being at his side and feeling open, being herself without holding back, without wearing a mask--they were never good at that, anyway), but her pride burns hot in the marrow of her bones, her tongue honed and ready. Jeyne doesn’t want to let him save her, not like this, not when it would break the promises she made to herself (you’re stronger than this, she tells herself, and she knows she can bear the consequences, she made that choice last night).

“What would your father think?” she asks, trading her yes for an attack; she folds her arms around herself, the words harsh and stinging when they leave her mouth (she wonders if she should have said it, if she should have asked it; how cruel he must think her, but she can't bring herself to care). “What do you think he would say to that?”

Pain flickers briefly across his features and it makes her a bit sick to see the hurt flash in his eyes. Her mother always said she had a sharp tongue, called Jeyne her sharp little blade (with an edge of pride in her tone sometimes, but more often Jeyne heard willful and stubborn slip off her tongue, a certain condemnation in her eyes), always quick to strike out with her words until she learned to bite them back, to hold her tongue, but sometimes they cut out between her lips. His expression recedes after that, hardening again, tucking himself away behind the firm line of his mouth and tight jaw, before he ducks his head, turning his eyes from hers.

"My father is dead," Robb says very quietly, a chill in his voice that unsettles her, the finality of it ringing in her head. She expects him to curl in on himself, wrap his arms around himself and avoid her gaze (she deserves it), but his shoulders stay strong as his fist ball up against the bed and he lifts his face, taking a deep, shaking breath. "I don't think it matters what he thinks of me," he says, his tone flat, a note of resentment cutting through his words, laced with enduring grief and bitter disappointment. A smothered kind of anger shadows his features and it must be directed at her (it's her fault and she hasn't taken it back, hasn't apologized, letting her words hang between them, letting them fester in his old wounds)--but he doesn't see her when he speaks, she realizes, almost looking past her with his heated eyes, his mind elsewhere.

"He raised me with all these high ideals, made me believe in honor and to trust that others would follow the same code, and I thought--” Robb pauses and his fists unfurl, and he’s looking at her again, seeing her again; he half-grins, jagged and wry as his eyes go dark. “But he was wrong and the world isn't like he said.”

Jeyne sees the war in his eyes. She’s caught glimpses of it before, quick moments where Robb will look suddenly weary, and worn, and old--not like the boy she had come to know--and now it stares back at her and she sees the toll it’s wracked on him, how it crumbles his youthful idealism underneath its weight. Jeyne takes a few steps forward before she realizes she's moving, tugged along by this innate desire that she can’t stamp out (a weakness she doesn’t need); she wants to touch him, smooth her lips over his furrowed brow and curl herself around him, try to battle away the defeat and the bitterness and remove the armor Robb’s built for himself in coiled muscle and clenched jaws. But she stops herself before she gets too near, dropping her arm before she reaches him and feel his skin under her fingertips; she winds her hands in the skirt of her gown instead, keeping herself apart before she gets wrapped up in him, in them and forgets.

“That’s the world,” she says, hoping to bring comfort with her voice and her words--trying to speak evenly, gentle what she's saying with soft tones--in hopes he might hear what she has to say and listen to rationality. “Not you. You’re better than that, and you’re better than this.”

Robb cocks his brow, tilting his head at her, like he wants to respond, but he's holding his words back, remaining silent, choosing to let skepticism in his expression speak for him; she wonders if he even believes her. She wants to push at him, to make him see this is only a temporary solution that comes with high risks. I thought if I won the battles, she remembers him whispering to her at night, then that meant I’d won--but I’m losing, it’s all slipping away.

It’s not just about you and me, she thinks and she wants to remind him he needed that bridge and he needs those men that came with the promise he talks so easily of breaking. And you need her, Jeyne thinks to herself, and not me, I’m worth nothing but a pile of ruins and handful of knights. She wants to tell him, you can’t win with me (she wonders how his betrothed--the nameless, faceless girl that's one of a hundred others, all of them with the potential to be chosen--would feel to be cast aside for the likes of her, if she would be relieved or disappointed or heartbroken, if he’s breaking hundreds of hearts if he breaks his promises, if they would be grateful to be saved from marrying some Northern stranger, or if they wanted to be queen, rebel or not). But she can’t say any of it, she can’t bring the words past her lips when she’s sure he won’t listen.

“If Jon were here,” Jeyne says suddenly, remembering Robb’s baseborn brother (Jon, she thinks, turning his name over in her head, feeling like she knows him though she’s never seen his face, never talked with him) and how Robb spoke of him--fond and proud and sad all at once, with a broad smile stretching across his mouth and showing his teeth; something about it reminded her of Raynald and herself, speaking of a closeness and a friendship that went beyond the bonds of kinship (would you listen to Jon, she wonders, if not me?), “what would he tell you?”

He laughs and it startles her, the sound of it high and almost warm, inviting, if it weren't for the biting undercurrent. "If Jon were here, he would have throttled me for even thinking of touching you," he says. “He would have struck me for being so stupid, for not thinking and lying with you. I promised him once I would never lie with a woman I did not intend to marry.” A flush rises pink in his cheeks as his smile tightens. “If I’ve gotten you--” he starts and stops, wrestling with the words that won’t seem to come out of his mouth. “If you’re--”

“If you’ve gotten me with child,” Jeyne finishes for him, acutely aware of the way the skin on her thighs itches, where his release has dried and flaked, but still sticky between her legs. “If you’re leaving me with a bastard.”

“It won’t happen,” he says, the shame fading as the same foolish determination replaces it. “I won’t let it.” He's not lying, she knows, she can tell he believes what he says (he's shared enough, laid himself bare with his voice cracking and his eyes open to know what he looks like when he's being honest), but the words feel wrong, the strength of his conviction almost rehearsed, practiced. It's not enough--or perhaps too much, too apt and too neat; Robb isn't neat, she thinks, he's messy when he's honest, like an open wound.

Jeyne arches a brow. “Will you? I assure you, you won’t be the first king with a bastard, nor the last.”

“That isn’t the point,” he snaps. “I don’t care about what other kings have done, I just want--” Robb stops himself suddenly, taking a deep breath, pulling back whatever words had been on the edge of his tongue. “It’s my responsibility, I need to--”

“If I recall, I was there and I didn’t refuse you,” Jeyne interrupts, anger hot in her mouth, striking out.

Robb lets out a frustrated growl, brushing his hand through his hair. “It’s not my honor at stake, Jeyne.”

“It is if you marry me.”

He glares at her as Jeyne holds his stare, not backing away. “I don’t care,” he says. “That’s not what’s important, gods--”

“Robb--”

“--just let me fix this. Please?” he pleads, eyes softened. That should comfort her, she thinks, that he wants to help, that he's not leaving her to drown in this by herself--but instead it fills her a low churning feeling in her gut, akin to dread, but closer to a warning as she stiffens under his gentle stare. “I need to fix this. I should have known better, I should have remembered, but I didn’t and that’s my fault. Let me fix my mistake.”

It shocks her for a moment, numbing her until it starts to sting, like a slap across her cheek and she flinches as heat starts blooms on her face, rising up under her skin. “Is that what I am to you?” she asks, her voice quiet, trying to mask the hurt, but it still quakes and she hates it. “A mistake to fix?”

His eyes widen, but she can’t see him beyond that, just the blue of his eyes staring into hers. Her breaths are quick and erratic as she nearly takes in gulps of air, her hands shaking even as she wraps them tighter in the skirt of her gown, trying to keep still. She didn’t think--she never wanted to be a mistake.

“What? No, Jeyne, that’s not--”

“Then what, if I’m not a mistake?” she says quickly, tongue nearly tripping over itself to get the words out, voice shaking and unsteady, but loud enough to drown him out. She’s not ready to hear him, her feelings too fresh, too open, rising up inside her like a sudden storm and she can’t seem to stop talking. “Am I a maidenhead that you took? A piece of torn honor that you need to restore?” It hurts to stand--a marrow-deep ache creaking through her bones--but she holds herself upright, wrapping her arms over her middle as the hollowness in the cavern of her chest echoes, her heart still beating. Jeyne bites down on her lip, feeling her fingertips pressing hard in the gaps of her ribs, and she thinks, I never wanted this.

“No, never,” Robb says, and Jeyne almost believes him, with his eyes raw and worried, reaching a hand out--for her to take or touch, she doesn’t know, but he lays it down as quickly as he raised it up, curling his fingers in on his palm (if she ran, would he chase her, she wonders, or stay seated here, until she came back?--she doesn’t think she ever would). “If you would stop and only listen to me, let me explain--”

“Why should I?” Her voice is low and mean, rolling off her tongue like a snarl when she cuts him off--she thinks perhaps she should stop, but her anger is sudden and strikes out (like a wounded animal--trembling in terror yet attacking with claws and teeth, harsh words and the sharp edge of her tongue) and she can’t.

“I’ve had enough of listening to reasons why I need to marry you and enough reminders of how dire my situation is. It’s as if you think I don’t know? That I hadn’t thought this through?” Her heart sinks as she asks her questions, watching Robb curl in on himself, and she doesn’t want to be disappointed in him, but it writhes under her skin like a living thing, twisting in her gut. Jeyne doesn't want to see pity in his eyes, not an apology; she doesn't want him to look at her and feel shame as he asks her to marry him to spare her--I could live with shame, she thinks as she looks away, and a bastard; they’ll be mine, only mine, just like my choices. “I came to you. I came and kissed you, and I knew exactly what I was doing, what I was asking for and what I was giving up, what the consequences might be. I can take care of myself.”

There's no pity in his eyes, when she brings her gaze back to his, not like she feared--nor the apology that's been on his tongue since the night before, but a plea, asking for the trust she's already given him despite her better judgement, wrapped up in affection. Robb holds himself upright, muscles taut and his hands clamped on his knees, the skin growing whiter under his fingertips. It’s too restrained and Jeyne can see where he trembles from holding himself too tight, where he's ready to fly apart (he's not made to be still, she think to herself, restless when he was stuck in bed, hands twitching and always moving when he should have been resting his shoulder; he's made for wars and battles and movement, always running and never stopping, for his warm smiles and quick, secret touches, but never stillness and he shakes from the pressure of it).

“I know you can, but you shouldn’t have to,” he says, steadfastly, so sure, like an oath (don’t declare yourself to me, Robb, don’t pledge vows now), but the way he looks at her is honest, more honest than his words (excuses and justifications and nothing she wanted to hear, everything that hurt) and it almost comforts her to see. But her resolve doesn’t falter or crumble, locked in place while she still feels it seizing like a vine wound tight around her heart, aching in her chest, even as his eyes chip away at it, urging it to loosen.

It’s not enough, Jeyne thinks, keeping her distance (aware that either could cross the space between them if only they could make themselves reach out). Jeyne shrinks, her shoulders slumping as she sighs.

“Why do you want to marry me, Robb?” she asks, feeling the fight go out of her, draining from her body as exhaustion replaces it, fatigue settling in her bones already and her day barely begun. Her anger recedes, pulling back inside her until it goes out and she can’t feel it anymore, not the burn or the heat, nothing--only the pain it was masking. She feels exposed, the hardened shell it made of her skin cracking as her armor slips off, leaving her nothing but a bundle of nerves and vulnerable flesh, baring all her weak spots. It gets harder to ignore when the strength of her pride fails her and she feels her eyes start to sting, choking on a thickness in her throat.

“Jeyne,” Robb says gently, voice low and soothing, as if that should be enough, just her name--it nearly is. Jeyne wishes he would move, leap up and grab her, and pull her against him so she could bury her face in the crook of his neck, feel his hand stroke the back of her head, over her neck. It would be so easy to relax against him and let Robb wrap his arms around her, warm and comfortable--to let him hold her and feel his lips press against her temple, kissing her like he couldn't bear to let go. But he doesn’t, Robb doesn’t move.

He cuts a rigid figure, immobile, his stiff posture a stark contrast with his open and inviting gaze; she thinks of his easy touches, wondering if she should go to him, if his hands would open up and his muscles soften, if it would take only a touch and he would be Robb again, not this stranger in front of her with his contradictions and coolness. Doubt picks up inside her, turning over in her head, and she can’t trust these fragile glances, she needs something concrete to hold onto--to believe in when all he makes her feel is uncertain.

She loosens her grip on herself, arms still folded around her middle, but she can’t will her feet to move. The space between them is short, a few small steps, but it feels like a field, a treacherous great expanse filled with hidden traps, neither of them brave enough to cross--Robb has never been afraid of touching her before, gives away his affection freely (too freely, her mother had said once, walking in when Robb had leaned in close to tuck a strand of hair behind Jeyne’s ear, his hand curled around hers, his breath across her cheekbone, sniffing around you like that wolf of his, no sense of propriety--tread carefully, her mother had said, but Jeyne never did).

“Is it because of honor? Do you want to marry me because it’s the honorable thing to do?” she asks, the words slipping past her lips quick and thoughtless, trying to hide the waver in her voice. “Or because of duty?” She can't stop the outpouring of questions, searching his face, but never pausing for answers, not sure what she would do or how she would feel if he ever said yes.

“It’s important, isn’t it? But--”

“Family, duty, honor; Tully words, your mother’s words, am I not mistaken?” Jeyne almost laughs, half-hysterical, tension growing in her throat, the choked sound of her voice loud in her ears. “Do you regret it, Robb? Is that why you apologized afterwards? Do you need to make amends?”

“No! Jeyne, I don’t--” he says, and stops, nearly short of breath as Jeyne watches his stillness unravel, his hands moving toward her, his actions fitful and stunted until he drops them to his sides, his eyes searching hers, nervous and worried. He breathes out heavily. “Haven’t I hurt you enough?”

Jeyne takes in the remorse marring the edges of his eyes, misery etched on his features as he looks at her, hints of an apology on his lips and she can't stand it. Her throat feels dry as it clenches harder, aching as she tries to swallow, blinking away the burning of her eyes as she bites down.

“Is that it? You feel guilty?” she manages to say, hardly more than a whisper. I’m not a ruined thing, she thinks, her eyes locked on his, but she trembles, a fear pounding in her chest as she wonders if that’s how he sees her, a thing he broke; it cuts deep, like a sharp, stinging flesh wound, a blade running through her to think she's just someone he feels responsible for.

Her hands creep down her torso, hesitant but sure of their path, her shaking fingers trailing over over her skin through her gown. Her fingers fan out as she spreads her palms over her stomach, inhaling harshly when she presses in. Not just me, Jeyne thinks, goosebumps rising up on her skin, stroking her fingers across her stomach, this as well. There was always the potential, the risk of a child, she knew, of course she knew and she braved the possibility of it, rushing headstrong and stubborn--she knew the consequences, had already mourned the loss of her patched together reputation that had been barely hanging on by the thread of her father’s name and not much else. Jeyne knew if her belly swelled after Robb left, everyone would know--her mother would know, know that the child was his. She never thought to spare herself the humiliation; it didn’t matter to her, it never mattered until he offered to marry her like this, like some consolation or salvation, the idea of it chafing under her skin, the sound of it hurting no matter how softly he says it.

“Because I might have your child?” Her voice cracks on the question, her throat finally seizing tight, her visions blurs as her eyes well up, but she will not sob, she will not let the tears fall. Jeyne grinds her teeth to hold it back, blinking away the wetness, but it doesn’t help, it doesn’t clear her vision or stop the rattling breaths shaking under her ribs. Her throat doesn’t ease up and still feels like she’s going to pieces, an emptiness piercing through her--she won’t, she won’t, she will not let him see her cry.

She thinks he sees, despite her best efforts. “Jeyne, I--” he starts, not ungently, but it doesn’t help, she needs, she needs--more, her fingers itching to dig it out of him.

“Why?” she asks and it comes out a gasp, her voice edging on a sob. Jeyne feels her tears spill over, hot on her cheeks and salty in her mouth, tasting thick as she coughs on them and tries to bite them back. She brushes them away with her fingers, rubbing at her eyes with the backs of her hands until she can see, see Robb and stare back at him with her eyes burning.

He swallows hard, Jeyne watching his throat jump, quick and jerking--he looks away (not before she notices the red lining his eyes; like mine, she thinks, we've worn each other down), casting his eyes down at his hands, curling and uncurling as he breathes out, halted and shuddering.

“I don't want to leave you behind,” Robb says quietly, so quietly Jeyne almost doesn’t hear him, but he looks up and his expression has crumbled, steely facade rusted and cracked and slipped from his features, leaving him exposed underneath. His shipwrecked eyes lock with hers, wide and entreating as his breath leaves him gasping, and she remembers his tears, hot on her neck, the way they irritated her skin when they dried; she remembers his face, cupped in her hands--I never should have left them, Jeyne hears, letting it echo in her head, remembering the misery in his voice like knife-wound in her chest. “Please don't make me have to leave you behind." His voice is louder now, but there’s a sharpness in his tone, a fragility around the curve of his face and she’s struck by the memory of the king they carried in, arrow lodged in his shoulder, his face bloodless and fallen slack in his unconsciousness--no more than a mere boy, Jeyne remembers thinking, startled, just a boy--so young and impossibly small in her bed, paler than the sheets, except for the red of his blood and his hair.

It’s too late; I never stood a chance.

Her heart pounds in her chest as her feet take flight, hardly touching the floor until she crashes into Robb. He catches her before they topple over, his arm locked around her as they press together, the distance creating a craving for the the other’s touch alight under their skins. His mouth is open on her neck as she cards her fingers through his hair, resting her head against his, bridging the gap with their touches and holding onto each other with a sort of sinking inevitability. The clarity of it running down her spine with the feel of his fingers stroking over the bones as she slips into his lap, curling closer--they couldn’t pull away not now, the pair of them made of stitched together veins and fused skin--if they tried to rend themselves apart, they would only make a bloody mess, each ravaged and torn-asunder.

It’s not honorable, she reminds herself, like him, like me--but the yes she doesn’t say lingers between them, where skin meets skin, where her heart beats against his chest, and his against hers, in the tremble of her fingertips and her lips pressing against his temple and the churning of her stomach. What a pair we make, Jeyne thinks as Robb’s fingers trail down her arm, as she feels the scrape of his teeth against her neck, hears the senseless things he whispers in her ear, selfish and willful and never knowing our place, the shame of our mothers.

“I would be queen.” It spills forth from her lips as the realization hits her, sending a wave of nausea roiling through her stomach and she sits up, feeling light-headed, her hand clutching Robb’s arm. He looks up at her, brow furrowed in concern, holding her up. “I don’t want to be queen,” she says, and Robb’s concern bleeds into sympathy, an apology filling his gaze.

“I never wanted to be king,” he says, brushing her hair from her face, thumb stroking her cheekbone as his palm cups her jaw (she always knew, though he never said it out loud, never told her--she always knew). “You’ll be much more adept at it than I, and everyone will be glad of you,” he tells her, a ghost of a grin curling around his mouth and Jeyne laughs, her stomach still churning and her heart beating faster, but finds a certain release in his earnestness, his hopefulness. Robb stares at her, thumb still brushing over her cheek and Jeyne stops laughing, caught by the look in his eye. “They’ll love you.”

They’ll hate me, she thinks, the truth of it twisting in her gut, but she won’t say it, won’t shatter the look on Robb’s face, clinging to it to keep from breaking herself. “I will make do, I suppose,” she says, trying to force a smile, exude a confidence in her tone, but Jeyne thinks the shaking in her body betrays her.

“It will be alright,” Robb says, pulling her back against him as Jeyne tucks her head under his chin, the scratch of his beard against her cheek, the pulse in his throat as he runs his fingers through her hair. “You’ll see, I promise.” Jeyne wants to tell him not to promise such things when only uncertainty lays in wait for them, but she can’t bring herself to open her mouth, reveling in his comfort and in his lies.

“My mother was southron, like you, she will help if you need it.” She thinks of Robb’s mother, Lady Catelyn Stark, she says to herself, repeating the name, memorizing it and tries to imagine her face, this woman who was southron and went North and became something else--Lady of Winterfell, Jeyne thinks, but Winterfell is gone (you will be lady to a lost castle and queen to a lost kingdom). “One day, we’ll go home,” Robb says, his voice faded, trailing off; I am home, Jeyne thinks, but remembers she’ll be leaving soon, trading one ruin for another. “I’ll win back Winterfell and we’ll rebuild,” he says it softly, as if only to himself, but Jeyne likes the way he says we’ll, likes the sound of it in his mouth. “You and I, we’ll bring it back.” He lifts her head and catches her gaze. “I only wish you could have seen it the way I remember it.”

A part of her wishes for that, too--for anything different than these set of circumstances, but she’ll cling to what she has.

Jeyne pushes forward and kisses him, grabbing his face in her hands when she can’t find the words to respond--it’s too much, too much to think about and she quiets the sounds of her thoughts with the feel of his mouth on hers. “We--” she starts to say, pulling back, but Robb chases her mouth, stopping her words with quick kisses until she pushes him away, holding him at bay with her hands on his chest. “We should go speak with my mother.”

The thought settles uneasily under her skin, shooting a chill through her spine that brings back her trembling. Jeyne can’t picture her mother’s face, can’t gauge what her reaction would be when they go to her, when Jeyne comes to her having bedded their invader, the promise of marriage to the man to made them all captives on her lips, turning them all traitor with a single breath--making herself a traitor in her mother’s eyes (she never could please her, never, never enough).

“You’re scared,” Robb says, not unkindly. Jeyne cocks her head and gives him a rueful smile, but she leans into his hands as he rubs down her arms, easing the tremble from them. “We don’t have to,” he says, a mad sort of hope in his eyes. "We could stay here and never leave.” Robb leans forward and nuzzles her neck, kissing her jaw. "Just the two of us," he whispers. "We could stay and forget the world outside."

It's a tempting proposition and Jeyne feels the desire for it rise up inside of her, tugging at her reason. She tilts her head and meets his mouth with hers instead, kissing him gently, apologetically, before pulling back with her eyes closed, her forehead resting against his. "We can't," she says, feeling Robb breathe out across her mouth, hearing the sigh in it. Jeyne slips from his lap, disentangling their limbs and feeling the drag of his hands, loose, but not ready to let go, as she stands. “Come,” she says, grabbing Robb’s wrist and pulling him to his feet.

Jeyne wonders if she should blush at his nudity when he stands and the sheet drops, but the heat doesn’t rise to her cheeks when her eyes drift over him and she only grins back when she lifts her eyes and catches the smirk Robb casts at her, kissing it away briefly. “Dress,” she says against his mouth. “We can’t have you speaking to my mother looking like that.”

His grin broadens, but he doesn’t say what he’s thinking, what Jeyne can see in his eyes, the clever retort on the edge of his tongue that he keeps tucked behind his teeth. Robb’s fingers pull at her gown as his smile softens instead, a flush pinkening his cheeks. “What about you?” he asks, his finger slipping through a tear and brushing over her skin.

She shrugs, tugging at her gown, twisting her mouth. “This will have to do. All of my clothes are in Eleyna’s room.”

“Wear mine,” Robb says, stepping away before she can respond, before she can say no (Jeyne can only imagine what her mother would say to her dressed in men’s clothing, and she can’t decide which would be worse--that or her torn gown; at least I’ll be covered). He opens the trunk at the foot of the bed his men brought in for him and pulls out two sets of clothes, pushing one into her hands.

Jeyne keeps her gown on, tucking the ends up it the best she could into Robb’s breeches, the bulk of it billowing out at the top after she laces up, holding it in. They were tight around her hips and her thighs, not made for her shape--she had forgotten the feel, having been so long since Raynald had taken her riding because of the war (he always tossed his clothes at her in the stables, sighing impatiently at her gown and turned his back until she was dressed like him, practical if improper; Robb didn’t turn his back, his eyes lingering as he tugged on his own clothes). She pulled his tunic over her head, but foregoing the doublet, watching and waiting as Robb pulled his on, slow and gingerly, careful of his shoulder, but left it unbuttoned.

“Are you ready?” Jeyne asks. Are you? she thinks to herself, wringing her hands and trying to keep her breathing even, searching for the courage to step outside this room, to be prepared for whatever may happen. She’s accepted, not with her words, but Jeyne isn’t sure it matters when she feels the weight of her acceptance sitting heavily inside her, learning to breathe around its burden, and there’s no turning back (she doesn’t think she wants to).

“Not quite,” Robb says, grabbing her wrist and tugging her closer (she wants to be pulled all the way in, have him press her against his chest and hold her until she calmed, until she could be brave). “Come here.” She does, leaning into his hands as they slide up to her arms to her shoulders, nudging them. “Turn.”

Jeyne spins, turning her back to him, relaxing under his touches as she feels his hands at her neck, thumbs pressing into her nape before they slide upwards. His fingers comb through her hair, ridding it of tangles, rubbing the pads of his fingers against her scalp, over the back of her neck (it feels like when her mother brushed her hair, when she was calm and gentle, comforting as she hummed a song Jeyne could never make out, could never place the melody). Robb divides her hair into pieces, looping the sections through each other until her hair lays in a braid down her back, smoothed down by his deft hands.

Jeyne pulls it over her shoulder, hoping it stays without a ribbon to tie it off, and turns to face him. She tilts her head, running her fingers down the braid and missing the feel of his hands on her scalp, on her neck, the soothing feel of his touches. “Interesting skill for a king,” she says, light and teasing; it feels forced, put on, but it’s better than the fear. “Wherever did you acquire it?”

“My sisters.” Robb smiles and it catches in her chest, the warmth of it, the sadness. “Arya and sometimes Sansa, but mostly Arya. I...” he trails off, swallowing hard as Jeyne finds herself reaching up, her fingers tentative on his face, just the barest touch, but Robb leans into her palm and closes his eyes. She won’t ask, not right now (perhaps later, when there’s more time, she’ll press him, dig out little stories until she can patch together his history--maybe one day it won’t hurt to speak of)--not when she knows what he’s thinking of, the missing and the dead, everyone he couldn’t save.

Robb’s eyes open, blue and haunted, but he tries a grin, for her. “We should be leaving,” he whispers.

“I know,” Jeyne says and drops her hand as she turns toward the door.

She doesn’t know who reaches out first, but their hands collide, each grasping around the other, fingers entangling like tied knots, solid and unyielding. Jeyne squeezes his hand and Robb squeezes back as she catches his glance out of the corner of her eye, looking to him as she breathes out, watching the rise and fall of his chest.

They take the first step together, and the second, and the third, increasing their pace until they pass through the door, under the threshold--it never becomes any easier, but they muddle through, one step at a time, tethered by their hold on each other.