A/N: Wolf dreams plague Arya, but none of that matters with the Wolf King's promise. He will take her note to Ned and he will help them fight the Others. For the first time since the Long Night began, Arya doesn't feel alone.

THE RED HOOD

CHAPTER 8

Dreams of tooth and claw were interrupted by kisses and the sweet echoing tang of blood on her lip.

It was easy to forget herself, to become a girl with no name, with an old god worshiping her body.

Arya shuddered as her eyelids flickered open to find the Wolf King's silver orbs searing into hers. His gaze was as much a physical thing as his hands at her thigh, hitching her leg up as he slowly slid his manhood inside her cavern.

Stay here with me forever, she wanted to tell him. Instead, she bit her lip to hold in her moan.

Jon growled and stole her lower lip back, biting it almost painfully then tenderly sucking it into his mouth. Arya gasped as he released her.

"I want to hear you," he demanded with a roll of his hips.

Arya keened as she raked his back with her nails, catching the scent of fresh blood.

The Wolf King did not shrink back from her, only growled deeper as he increased his pace. "Please," he whispered, the desperate supplication slicing through the final shreds of her control. Arya threw her head back and gave into his plea.

All her life she had been taught to contain yourself! and lower your voice! Then, later, she reigned back her true nature. Not because Catelyn Stark commanded it, but because Arya had to hold them together. To finally release that coiling tension in her gut, to find completion with this half-man, half-beast, was more than she would have dared dream.

Another day had passed. Jon had once promised to let her outside after the first two days. The thought to leave never crossed Arya's mind after his most recent promise, not when they had spent the hours since exploring one another anew.

She squeezed her thighs now, linking her ankles around his perfect arse and meeting his thrust with her own. She crested so suddenly and strongly, she could barely breathe, only ride the waves of pleasure.

Boneless, Arya gave herself to her god's frantic rhythm as the Wolf King sought his own release, her name a prayer on his lips.

Wolves howled outside these wooden walls, competing with winter winds. Inside, the leaves rustled in the weirwood tree, tossing the spicy scent of magic in the air. Jon's hoarse cry sliced through the air, drowning all other sounds as he spilled into her once more.

After, he pressed kisses against the raw skin at her neck as he had every time they joined together, apologies spoken with a rasping whisper, "Forgive me, love. Forgive me…"

Arya shivered and tightened her hold on him, drawn to comfort him for reasons she couldn't explain. It seemed strange, to be the thing he sought solace in. Even more disturbing, how quickly she had given into this living, tangible connection between them. She shouldn't be so close to him, so reckless, not after all she knew, all he had confessed already. And like every time, Jon lifted his head to meet her gaze, softer, full, and barely any shadow hidden in his mercurial gaze.

"You are so beautiful," he murmured, that eerie distance masking his expression. His hand trailed over her skin, pressing, memorizing every curve and brushing over the mark at her neck.

Arya often wondered where he went to when he pulled away like this. The mask was a pale reflection of the Wolf King she had first met. Cold, unapproachable and so lost…

"So is this your plan, your grace?" She smirked as a single sooty brow lifted at her question. "Keep me in bed for the rest of winter?"

The distance cleared from his face, the traces of a smile belying the darkness drawing his brow together, the possessive pull of his hand kneading the flesh while drawing her closer. "If I thought I could keep you here, like this, I would."

Arya snorted. "If you think you can keep me anywhere I don't want to be, you don't know me very well, your grace."

Jon bit at her nose with a flash of too-sharp teeth. "Call me your grace one more time and you'll see just how demanding I can be."

He wants to possess you, stupid girl, a still small voice, too much like Catelyn, warned.

"Oh?" It was this thought, perhaps that made her smile grow wider in turn. "I'd have thought you'd need a moment to rest, Wolf King. As an old god, you must be ancient."

Jon's eyes crinkled at the corners as he stirred to life within her. "And I've waited a lifetime for you."

Arya pushed him back, ignoring the trails of fire his touch left on her skin. "Oh, no you don't."

Jon stilled, grin still in place. "Don't what?"

Arya shook her head and pulled away. "If we start that again, we're never leaving this bed. And I don't know about you, Wolf King, but I'm starving."

Her cheek was enough to draw laughter from the old god, long enough for Arya to finally slip from his arms and search for her clothes. No sign of her dress. "Probably threw it in the fire," she murmured under her breath and side-stepped around one of the other wolves to find Jon's tunic.

"Here," his voice drew her around to find the very naked Wolf King. It might not have been so bad if she couldn't still see her marks over his sculpted chest or the way he clearly yet desired her.

Arya swallowed back a curse as Jon helped her back into her dress. He ignored her attempts to shove him aside. "Jon. I've been dressing myself for most of my life. I think I can manage." Her breath hitched as he helped tug the dress over her hips and he pulled her hair free.

"Let me take care of you, Arya," he replied with a low rumble. Like the thunder building outside their walls.

Is there a thunder god too?

Jon's lips at her neck stole the question off the tip of her tongue.

Arya wrapped her arms over her chest, ignoring the tightness in her nipples. "If you wanted to care for me, you'd give me back my armor. I feel naked, walking around here like this." The dress—gray today—was impractical as it was a reminder of a simpler time, the easy comfort she associated with summer.

A nagging suspicion, one she'd willingly ignored in fact, pricked her ire. "Unless you didn't mean it when you said you'd let me go outside again today."

Jon's laughter thrilled her, such a hard-won thing in the beginning. "I should have known you wouldn't forget."

Arya turned in his arms and rested her hands against his naked chest. "Of course, stupid. Now go put on some clothes. I can't think clearly with you like this."

"A good plan," he replied, adopting a mock-serious tone.

"Of course it is. Now hurry up, before I eat you." Arya slapped his chest and Jon's nostrils flared at her reprimand. Another rumble of thunder echoed in the distance and she almost considered leaving back into him, into his welcoming heat and desperate touch. Even now, he barely held his lust at bay behind his sharp smile. The shadow of his other nature rested beneath it all. Arya wanted to claim that otherness for her own. How easy it would be, to lose herself in him.

Arya pretended not to sneak glances at Jon while he dressed. She added fresh leaves to the fire, marveling as the flames burned brighter and hotter. "Could I have my cloak at least, if we're going outside?"

Jon stiffened, his back turned to her. "Aye…" He twisted his head to glance at her over his shoulder and forced a smile. "Be back in a moment."

Arya jerked upright as he headed for the forbidden door. "Wait," she called and stole a steadying breath when his hand paused at the door handle.

"Can't I go with you? That's your room, isn't it?" She cocked a hip and pushed forward a playfulness she didn't truly feel, adding, "Surely there's nothing in there I haven't seen before, unless that's where you keep your human sacrifices."

She waited, casual smile held in place as he shifted on bare feet, dark silver gaze assessing and weighing her.

"Wait here," he murmured, then entered the forbidden room in silence.

Arya dug her nails into her palms and bit her lip to hold back her temper. She turned a glare to the heart tree's bleeding face.

What the hell is he hiding in there?

The door swung back open and Arya relaxed her stance. This was forgotten the instant she recognized not only her boots, but the red hood draped over Jon's arm.

Jon smiled as Arya eagerly snatched her boots and began to slip them on. The red cloak he kept close to his chest. His long fingers ran over the careful silver-thread embroidery, wolves interchanged with winter roses.

She reached for the cloak and Jon recoiled, drawing the cloak nearer before pausing. With a slight shake of his head, he drew the cloak around and over her shoulders.

"Who comes before the Old Gods this night?" a voice, a distant echo whispered at the back of her mind.

It was a struggle to remember how to breathe as Jon's hands slid down her arms to grip her hands.

"Come." The sorrow was back in his silver eyes as he pulled her forward and back at once, towards the bolted entrance.

Arya drew her first breath only after he released his hold on her to lift the bolt and pry open the heavy door.

A gust of winter snows swirled before them, kissing her nose with a familiar sting. Arya gasped and darted forward.

"Arya, wait," Jon called from behind as he shut the lodge door.

She didn't wait. She ran down a set of stony steps and into the open yard below, adding prints among lighter wolf tracks. Jon's nearly silent tread followed and the rest of his pack slipped from the shadows, curious, watching from between the smaller, outer buildings. The mountain rock enclosed nearly half of Jon's keep, jagged obsidian walls ringing the wide enclosure. But the sky…

The sky!

Arya tilted her head back to the sky and spread her arms wide, drinking it all in. She felt alive, as though she had been buried beneath a layer of smoke and magic. An unending sleep.

Jon's hurried steps had slowed, but he froze entirely when she began to twirl.

Arya laughed as her feet stumbled in the drift, but she only moved faster, and her hands desperately craved for her daggers. She wanted to dance as Syrio Forel had taught her.

Swift as a deer...

Instead, Arya let her next stumble pull her to the earth. She knew her red cloak would be soaked from this later. Now, she wanted to feel the snow at her back and her face and simply feel.

Jon had not moved from his position, silent and grave as the statues of the old winter kings of Winterfell, she mused.

"You going to stand there, your grace, or are you going to join me?" She was smiling and didn't pause to wonder why she hadn't smiled like this in years.

He moved so quickly, like a shadow, kneeling beside her. "Don't you want to see the rest of it? Smells like a storm is settling in."

"It's fine. And I know what a keep looks like, Jon." Arya rolled her eyes, turning from the sky to face him fully. What she found stole her breath once more.

She had expected to find the cold mask of her old god. Instead, she saw Jon. A wave of such longing filled her, Arya didn't know whether to kiss him or run.

Run with the wind, down the mountain, tear into our enemies with tooth and claw, a growing voice whispered at the back of her mind.

The wolves came closer, now that their master rested again. The yips of pups sang nearby and Jon quirked a brow at her, and his soft smile grew. "Want to meet the pups?"

Arya scrambled onto her feet and made quick work dusting the snow from her backside. Jon chuckled as he followed, and then his hands replaced hers, carefully removing any lingering dust. His touch, burning through her clothes, made the urgency to meet the pups increase.

"Let's go, before the storm breaks," she interrupted, taking a safe step forward.

Jon's fingers laced with hers as he pulled her to the larger of the outer buildings.

His smile never faded. Not as he passed tiny balls of fluff and teeth into her arms in the stables. Not later, as the winds chased them past the forge and into the armory, stacked with dragonglass weapons and steel that had belonged to the kingdoms of old.

Arya marveled at the blades as she ran her fingertips over the cool surfaces She thought she could almost feel the heat of magic trapped in stone and steel.

"Here, I believe this may suit." His voice came as a low rumble from over her shoulder.

Arya reluctantly turned from the twin set of wolf-head daggers and froze at the thin blade cradled between Jon's scarred hands. "What is that?"

Silver orbs flickered quickly from hers to the steel between them and he lifted the sword higher. "A Bravosi blade."

Arya struck the toe of her boot to the stone floor. "Yes, I know what it is. Why... why are you giving it to me?"

Jon's chest shook against an unsteady breath and when he lifted his gaze his eyes were wet.

Arya absently covered her throat with a hand, anything to brace against the sudden tightness she felt. What... she didn't understand what he was doing, or why it mattered to her so much.

It's just a damned sword, stupid.

"I forged this for you. You—that first night, as we fought the Others—you fought as though you were dancing." He grimaced over his words and glared at the blade in his hands, struggling for words. He had struggled to speak when they first met, as though he'd been out of practice with the common tongue. "I hope I got the details right," he added, in a low murmur.

"You forged ?" She shouldn't find the concept so ridiculous. Of course, he needed to know how. He lived alone, after all. Who else would fix his weapons, she thought as she looked at his collection. Only, she had grown so accustomed, to thinking of him as a god. And this was all new, of that much she was certain.

Jon shook his head and began lowering his hands. "I shouldn't have—"

"Shut up."

Jon startled beneath her touch. When had she moved? Arya stared a moment from her hand on his elbow and then reached an unsteady hand for the grip of the needle-thin steel. Arya lifted the blade and took three careful steps back.

Jon's hands clenched into fists as he lowered them back to his sides. Still, he watched, his face a mask once more as Arya turned, side-face as Syrio had taught her.

The grip was familiar, like a missing extension of her arm and Arya couldn't help her smile as she followed the first steps of the water dance. There was little room to practice in here. She wanted to go back to the outer yard.

Can he use a sword as well as he uses his claws?

Her gaze flicked up to his as she rested the tip of her gift to his throat. "Care to dance?"

Jon's eyes crinkled at the corners with his smile. "Aye."

The skies chose that moment to release an icy rain overhead.

Review: Okay, I know I promised more action in this chapter. I had EVERY intention of pushing the plot forward, but then this chapter happened. And honestly, I can somewhat control Jon, but Arya is another story. ;) Hope everyone enjoyed this last bit of fluff before things get real. The night is dark and whatnot, after all. Thanks so much to everyone who has read and supported this story with kudos and comments! Your words are golden and I treasure them, friends. Next, Arya will uncover more behind the mystery of Jon's magic and what's been happening in the wider world. Stay tuned and happy reading!