JON STARK makes two shocking discoveries in quick succession. One: his brother, Robb, has been working undercover. Two: Robb is dead.

Jon refuses to believe that his hero elder brother killed himself. And there's only one way to find out the truth: follow in his footsteps.

There's a job: to infiltrate the notoriously violent Targaryen family.

There's a girl: the boss's youngest child – beautiful, sexy, quite dangerous.

Before long, Jon is up to his neck in Targaryen family business… and sinking fast.

…

And before we get started, I would just like to point out some characters will act differently unlike their actual versions and the relationships are not the same either. So Jon is actually a Stark and not related to Dany at all.

Enjoy

…

Jon's P.O.V.

"We found him face down in the mud at Long Reach."

It was only 7 a.m. and you rarely see a copper in tears so early in the day. Even off-duty.

My mum, Catelyn, looked wide-eyed at Theon Greyjoy as he tried to get words out, but his face collapsed like a balloon that was leaking, and the sentences quickly turned to sobbing, snotty gibberish. Mum pulled Theon in by the arm. He dragged his sleeve across his eyes to try and staunch the flow of tears and get control of his voice.

"He's dead. Robb's dead."

My mum had known the instant she'd opened the door, and so had I. The feeling had been growing between us, unspoken, for days on end. She had just needed to hear the words and then she began to cry, throwing herself back against the wall and banging her head almost rythmatical against the wallpaper.

"He was down river. Place called Long Reach. Near Dartford Bridge. Looks like he might have jumped off." Theon looked at me through wet, red eyes. "I'm so sorry," he said. "Sorry mate, your brother was a hero." His voice then dissolved into sobs again.

The emotion hit me like a fist to my stomach, but no tears came. Mum and Theon were clinging to each other in the hallway. My younger brothers sisters, Bran, Rickon, Arya and Sansa all eventually came down to see what was going on. I told them, and they immediately joined in on the bawling. But I didn't. I pushed past them instead, through the open front door and out into the wet street.

I ran across the road and over the railway bridge up to the park, past a couple of hardcore joggers and speeding commuters heading towards the station. From the empty park I looked out over the misty outskirts of London, my breath coming in heavy gulps. The gulps quickly turned to sobs and a loud, animal wail forced itself out of my throat.

The realization hit me that I would never see Robb ever again; breathe the smell of his black leather jacket when he hugged me, catch the beer on his breath and feel his stubble on my cheeks.

Never again.

I looked across at Canary Wharf, twinkling with early morning lights, and on to the Dome and the sluggish grey flatness of the river as it widened out on its way down through Kent. Looked out at the stretches of mud where they had found my hero, my brother.

…

Robb's funeral was a month later. No fuss and bother: just a simple service at a crematorium with a few words from a vicar who had never known him.

Our old man didn't even turn up, however. Although possibly he didn't know Robb was dead. Mum had kicked our dad, Ned, out two years ago, when I was 15-years-old. He was always pissed, drifting from job to job, until eventually he went a bit nuts and became violent. Robb had had a big fight with him: beat the crap out of him until he'd left for good. I'd only met him a couple of times since, shabby and unshaven. Once he turned up to a family wedding; the other time I saw him asleep on a bench in Lewisham. I hardly knew him.

Robb had to step. He always looked out for me.

It had taken them that whole month to do the post-mortem and all the paperwork. It was a nightmare, not just because of the way that Robb had died, but because officially it had been difficult to prove that he ever existed. Because, it seemed, Robb Stark had worked on something a bit hush-hush, with various false identities, and it was hard to work out that he actually was the real Robb Stark. It made my head ache. He was Robb. I knew he'd be light on his toes, but his aliases were new to me. A secret he'd never shared.

And then there was the coroner's verdict to swallow.

Suicide.

It struck me at the funeral that I didn't know much about my brother than the vicar did. Robb was a decade older than me, for a start; he'd always been at home when I was small, but I was just 'the kid'. He wasn't quite easy to know, but I knew how intelligent he was. That he was the first in our family to go to university. He'd done a History degree in Essex, or somewhere prestigious. I also knew that around that time he'd got into big trouble with drugs, organized raves and house parties, and had got caught knocking out cannabis to other students in his campus.

According to mum, Robb had made a deal with the police, working for them as a trade-off for a sentence. Poacher-turned-gamekeeper, feeding back information here and there, giving them leads to drug deals, illegal raves, that kind of thing.

A man named Tyrion Lannister had helped sorted it out for him.

Tyrion, in a way, had always been there for us, as far back as I could remember; the loyal family friend. He was plain clothes or CID – as for as I knew – and he'd drop round from time to time, just to make sure Mum and I were OK after the old man went. He'd be there to reassure Mum whenever Robb went on the missing list for a few weeks.

I knew that Robb hadn't been whiter than white, and I knew he could be difficult. I just couldn't understand how he had got to a place where topping himself was the best option.

I couldn't understand and I was angry about it. How could he do it it to me… to Arya… to Sansa, Rickon, Bran… to Mum?

…

We drove back to the house in the hearse. Heavy rain drummed on the big, black roof and our breath steamed up the windows, protecting us from the stares of passers-by. I embraced Mum close to me in the back of the car. Suddenly, she felt very small, as if the month grieving and preparing for the funeral had really shrunk her. She'd bought sandwiches and snacks from Marks & Spencer. They didn't look anything like the ones you see on the telly: These are not just sandwiches, these are M&S funeral-pack sandwiches, dried-up and curly in the central heating.

They didn't seem to put anyone off, though. Tyrion, Theon and some of Robb's mates tucked inn, racking cans of bitter and laughing and talking in loud voices that disguised their grief.

I had felt very alone.

There was no one else of my age there. Plenty of people gathered around Mum, making the right noises, but nobody seemed to know what to say to me. Tyrion must have noticed me standing there on my tod, looking pissed off, and he came over.

"Beer?" he said, passing me a can.

I tipped it at him and took a swig, lukewarm and metallic. Despite his height, Tyrion still shuffled awkwardly, trying to fit in appropriately.

"Been back to school yet?" he asked.

I shook my head. I'd never been a big fan of the education system and I'd had my fair share of trouble at school. I figured that being fairly average in a South London comp wasn't going to secure me a six figure City-boy salary or a degree in rocket science. As soon as I could, I wanted to be off.

"Well, you've got a pretty good excuse for skiving off a bit, I'd say."

"I'm not going back," I said.

The previous year, I had finally stopped mucking about, muckled down and done a few GCSEs. It would be fair to say I hadn't broken any records, but I had the basics under my belt. I'd done all right in maths and English, got decent grades in drama and French. But ICT was my thing. Technology came as second nature to me. I'd gone back to do and an A level in it, but school was really doing my head in now.

Tyrion stared at his shoes. "You certain? Bright young man like yourself?"

"I've had enough, Tyrion," I said. "It's not been a great year. I figured… I thought I might get a job."

I could almost see the cogs turning in the little man's head. "What sort of thing?"

I shrugged him before taking another swig, "Dunno. Something with computers or something."

There was a moment of pause.

"I've been thinking about you over the last couple of weeks now," Tyrion said. "How old are you now?"

"Seventeen," I replied. I felt a bit defensive. Where the hell was this leading?

Tyrion considered a moment, "Listen, I've got something of Robb's I'd like you to see." He went over to where his briefcase was sitting on a chair and pulled out a padded envelope. "Here you go, old son," he said. "And please don't show this to anyone, it's still a bit sensitive. Just have a look and let me know what you think."

He took a card out from his pocket and handed it to me. "When you're ready, give me a bell." Then he gestured for me to crouch then where he grabbed me into a bear hug. When he released me I could see the tears pricking his eyes.

"I might have a job for you," he said.

…

Once everyone had left, I emptied out the envelope onto the bed.

There was a certificate and a small box. I opened the box and inside was a medal, bright as if it had been made yesterday. It was silver with the Queen's head on one side and a crown on the other, with the words The Queen's Gallantry Medal. I unfolded the certificate. It had a royal seal at the top and underneath it declared that the medal had been awarded to Robb Stark, "for acts of great bravery."

Tears began to blur my eyes.

Tyrion was right. Robb had been a hero.

I held the medal in my palm as if somehow it would connect me to my brother – to explain – but I felt nothing. I carefully folded up the certificate and put the medal, warm from my hand, back in its box.

I kicked back on the bed and closed my eyes. It had been a long day and my brain was struggling to absorb this latest piece of information. I tried to sleep, but my mind was running to fast. I kept rewinding and going over the past month – the way my life had changed, the gloom that had infected the house and settled like a damp, grey blanket over me and mum. She hadn't spoken much for days and just sat for hours on end, staring at daytime telly with the curtains drawn; watching naff celebrities giving people's house makeovers or changing their lives for a grand. My relationship with Bran, Rickon, and Arya, I felt, had started deteriorating. Sansa and I were still the same. Just constant bickering between us.

I pulled the thin duvet up around my neck and caught a whiff of my own smell. The sheets hadn't been changed for a month and that, added to the mess in my room, brought me up sharp. Unless I pulled my finger out and did something about it, we were heading for some kind of meltdown. I couldn't expect the old girl to snap to it and miraculously pull everything together. I wouldn't pretend that it was all happy families before Robb went, but losing him felt like we'd lost our anchor.

I finally began to drift off, but the very thoughts I was trying to banish from my mind just kept coming back: Robb playing football with me … all of us on holiday in Gibraltar … Robb sparring with me in the garden, grinning, telling me I was a loser who punched like a girl, before leaving himself open to a sucker punch and pretending to be knocked out, declaring me the champion of the world.

Every image seemed to be bathed in sunlight. I seemed to have blotted out the bits where Robb had come home looking starved and shagged, and had slept for days on end. Or the days when he prowled around the flat, doing nothing except smoking and peering out from behind the net curtains. Or, more recently, the times when he'd turn up, unexpected, pissed and talking fast, his hands shaking.

I remembered that holiday. About six years ago Mum had found us a place to stay in Brighton. It was a flat in a big Victorian house that smelt of old books and damp from being close to the sea. Robb had cooked us a fryup for breakfast every morning and we'd spent every day on the beach, swimming and throwing stones at Coke cans, which Robb sent up on the breakwater. I don't remember it raining, but it probably had.

Tyrion Lannister had come down for the night halfway through. He'd had some business in Camberley and thought he'd pay us a visit. He took us for dinner to a pub overlooking the sea where we'd eaten prawns and crabs, and I'd been allowed to drink cider. I remember Mum and the siblings being happy, with Robb a bit pissed and cracking jokes. To anyone looking in, we'd have looked like an ordinary family of seven.

Robb and Tyrion had stayed on in the pub for another hour while Mum took me back to the flat. I remember seeing the two of them, huddled together over a table as we left, their talk suddenly dark and serious as they sipped whisky chasers.

Tyrion went back the next day, but after that we ate out every night. Robb paid for everything; said he'd had enough of eating tinned soup and toasted sandwiches in the holiday flat. He took me out fishing on a boat and to the waxworks museum, which had a chamber of horrors showing people being tortured with hot irons and a moving skeleton playing a church organ. That really freaked me out.

Of course, when I got back to London I acted to my mates at school that drinking cider and looking at torture was part of my daily life with Robb. I'd big him up to them until he was at least ten feet tall with a punch that would fell Mike Tyson.

Happy days.

…

I woke up about four. It was still dark and the duvet was twisted around me in a knot. I was thinking good thoughts for a second, caught up in happy memories. And then the reality came back to me; a thump, low in my guts. I tried to go back to sleep, but lay with my eyes open until it became light. I got up and took a dump, trying to ease the know in my stomach, then stood outside the door of the small bedroom that Robb had stayed in when he was home.

Neither Mum nor I had even touched the room since he'd gone, let alone had the heart to chuck anything out. I pushed the door silently across the carpet and stepped into the early morning light that streaked through his window. Another dawn that Robb would never see.

There were no surprises. It was what is was: Robb's room. The giant sofa bed that he used to sleep in was folded up and boxes of his things still littered the floor. It smelt of Robb. I shut my eyes, took a deep breath and he could have been in the room with me. I flicked through the stack of CDs: mostly classic seventies rock dinosaurs and eighties bands that I'd never heard of.

I searched through the boxes: weights, some lads' mags, a glass bong. Nothing personal, just stuff. Nothing that told me any more than the little I already knew about my brother.

I opened the wardrobe, put my face into the clothes hanging there and inhaled leather jacket and faint after-shave, and he came back to me again. I searched his pockets and found nothing but empty fag packs and train tickets to and from New Cross.

And then I found a plastic wallet, tucked inside one of his jackets. There was no money in it, just another train ticket and card. It was a membership card for a club in New Cross, The Harp Club. It had a picture of a harp and a shamrock printed in green. There was a photo of Steve a couple of years ago, with a mild beard. I remembered him growing it too. Mum hated it. Robb had laughed though – said it could get the girls in his English class.

Next to the photo was his name. Not Robb Stark, but another name. Steve Palmer. Another identity.

I shut the bedroom door and went to the kitchen to make some tea and toast. I stared at the card again, and tried to read the blank, passport-photo look on Robb's face. It was giving nothing away. I glanced at my watch; it was nearly nine. Another day about to drift away, so I made a decision. I picked up the phone and dialed a number.

"Tyrion Lannister," came the voice on the other end.

"It's me," I said. "You mentioned a job."

…