Disclaimer: In this chapter, there is depictions of graphic sexual content and violence. Discretion is strongly advised.

Chapter Twenty-Nine: Monster

She was not Sansa. She did not feel like Sansa-supple and pliant-nor did she smell like her. Ramsay Bolton was known as the Mad Dog of the North after all. His senses were honed and sharpened, keen.

From the moment Sansa Stark visited the Dreadfort, Ramsay committed her scent to memory, imprinted her redolence like a stamp on his brain. She smelt of magic and the golden dawn, of winter blue roses touched by the first frost and the sweetest of peonies touched by twilight. Aye, he knew her scent well and inhaled deeply, both delirious and bereft simultaneously. Ramsay was acclimated to Sansa as he was to any other possession that was his.

The russet-haired wildling before him now was not his lost wolf (mayhap more fox than wolf, and even that was a poor substitution.), but she would have to suffice. Besides, Ramsay had been without a woman in well past a sennight; Myranda had been more trouble than she was worth, her envy and petulance irksome and tedious. He smirked coldly.

Such was the pity…

For a time, Ramsay had thoroughly enjoyed the pretty little kennel master's daughter. She reminded him of his bitches, loyal and stalwart beasts, partaking in everything he asked with equal depravity and fervor. And yet, therein lie the problem-she became too familiar, too comfortable. Too emulous. Quickly forgetting her designated place within the grand scheme of things. He and Myranda had an understanding; she was naught save a good fuck and nothing more.

Ramsay had thought she had understood their arrangement, accepted it for what it was. Aye, he had made that stupid promise to her all those years past that he would marry her-not that he ever intended to fulfill such an obligation. One would promise the moon if it meant getting fucked. However, all of that began to quickly disintegrate and dissolve once the betrothal had been brokered between Lord Stark and his father.

Then, Myranda had become stupid and presume to question him, make demands of him! Initially, Ramsay had been patient (as patient as an ebulent dog could be), suffering her outbursts and acquiescing to her tantrums. But then, Myranda had fallen pregnant, just as Violet, and began making demands of him, her latest ultimatum: either to marry her or watch as he forfeit everything as she threatened to expose him.

"You will marry me on the morrow, or I will ruin you! I swear it by all the gods-your House will crumple to the seas!"

That had been her mistake. Her last and final mistake.

Ramsay had given her ample warning of what would happen should she bore him, of what he was capable of. He was never one to suffer fools and did not make idle threats. Myranda knew this, and yet, stupidly, thought to restrain and tether him to her side permanently. As if she could…

It did not matter now, anyway.

His girls had feasted well that night, Myranda's shrieks and please piercing the hollow silence of the darkened kennels. The smell of gore and blood permeating the obscure chambers.

"She's good meat. Feed her to the hounds…"

Yet, Ramsay would be remiss if he did not miss her, however. Missed the way she would fuck him, white hands clutching at his throat as she rode him at a gallop, her inner walls gripping him like a vise. She was insatiable, wild. Ramsay lamented he would ever find another bed sport as vigorous-or as good-as she. Until now.

The wildling was on her hands and knees before him, her hips inclined, parallel to the ground, face to the mattress-away from him, as was his demand-as he bucked and raved inside her. She was still dirty and disheveled, as she had not bathed. Yet another of Ramsay's demands. For why should one waste precious resources on a fucking wildling?

Besides, the wildling bitch knew her place-dirtied, sullied, and on her hands and knees before her betters. 'Twas the way of things, the natural order. Never would she or those of her ilk be his equal.

Ramsay grunted and leaned forward, never ceasing in his vicious assault, and pulled Ygritte's hair, yanking roughly. She mewled loudly, whether in ecstasy or pain, he did not know. Nor care.

He was incensed.

Ygritte had told him everything last night. Like a great deluge releasing and spilling forth its secrets, Ygritte had told the truth-of Sansa Stark, of Mance Rayder, of that fucking whoreson, Jon Snow. The damned White Wolf. Ramsay clenched his teeth and began fucking roughly into her. Harder. His hands gripping the matted, russet tresses so tightly, it caused Ygritte's head to snap back into an arc, a low hiss emanating from her lips, her arm extending before her, gripping. Her back was a myriad of cuts, scratches and bite marks, a gruesome canvas of shredded and tattered flesh, testament of his ire and envy.

Yet in spite of his savagery, Ygritte continued to wail and pant, rutting harder against him. Instead of horror and revulsion, surfeit at being reduced to that of a leg of mutton to be masticated and chewed on, Ygritte reveled in the depravity and viciousness. Ramsay's cruelty a catalyst to her odaxelagnia.

While Jon had been gentle and attentive in his lovemaking, almost hesitant in his reciprocity; Ramsay was selfish, never giving or kind, but rather luxuriated in his debasement. A monster. That was what he was. An evil, wicked thing suckled off the teat of some winged succubus.

Ygritte winced and bit her lip, clenching the sheet before her tightly as Ramsay's hands sought a nipple, his grip both tight and chafing. His hands were not the hands of a lover with its innocent touches and tentative strokes, no. Rather but the hands of a butcher, used to disarticulate and shred instead of worship and revere. The hands of a monster.

Ramsay thrust into Ygritte once, twice, three times before spilling, roughly pulling her areola to an uncomfortably taut peak. The friction and callousness of his touch inflaming her, the stark contrast and juxtaposition of dry skin against the softness of her breasts causing her to come. The tent redolent with the smells of sex, blood and submission.

She should feel shamed, abashed at the thought of betraying her home, her people-Jon. All that Ygritte once loved and swore to protect with her every fiber. Now, all that she felt was elation and excitement at the prospect of betrayal-of twisting the dagger in so deeply and watching with cold, distant apathy as those who doubted her, cursed her, spurned her, bled out and percolated on the ground below.

" What stands before you, Ygritte, is a monster. Rough-hewn by unfortunate events and given by necessity."

Aye, Ramsay was a monster. Cruel, vicious, and ebullient. Yet, for the time being, he was her monster. Just hers. She alone holding the leash.

It mattered not if he wanted another, if she only reminded him of the wolf-bitch whenever he looked on her. If she was just some unwanted vassal used to sate his lust and discarded as offals to the furnace.

Nay, none of that mattered to Ygritte. She closed her eyes and smiled as she felt Ramsay sink against her, his weight both bruising and comforting simultaneously.

If he is a monster, then I am one, too...