RAMSAY held the last article of clothing he could recall his she-wolf of a wife wearing, a simple dress, velvet, black in color, and held it to his nose and inhaled deeply, his wolf's scent calming him and caused a strange peace to wallow in his black and wretched heart as he slipped in a foot into the basin Reek had found for him to bathe. He kept his eyes closed and allowed the sensation of Sansa's phantom hands to ghost over his skin as he lowered himself into the basin of freezing cold water, his teeth beginning to chatter, and his lips were tinged blue as he took his bath below the deck of the ship he and Reek had boarded, bound for the Isle of the Three Sisters, where Sansa Stark was said to be heading towards if he was to take the harbormaster at his word.
Her hands were soft, gentle, and cool, her phantom hands, though Sansa had never touched him with gentleness. If he closed his eyes to ideate her image in his mind's eye, he could almost hear his prickly wife's voice.
Ramsay….
He could hear her ghostly whispers, but he could not see her. Ramsay wanted nothing more than to touch Sansa so badly that it physically began to ache, causing that strange seeping pressure to build within his chest. He was skeptical of the feeling at first, but he soon came to understand that what he felt for Sansa when around her was a good thing. Something he wanted to experience again, and something that, thanks to Reek, had been stolen from him.
He felt his anger jump up a level and the urge to kill the traitorous rat pump through his veins.
Though, in a rare moment of calm for the mad dog, he kept his eyes closed and Sansa's gown, or what remained of it that he'd not previously cut up in a fit of rage upon discovering her missing, to his nose still. He was a patient man. He need not give away his intentions to Reek too soon.
Ramsay refocused his attention on allowing the image of his wife's sunset-red hair and sparkling blue eyes to fill his mind, imagining her delicate bone-white hands running over his shoulders and down his chest, and even lower still. His body began to tingle as his muscles tightened and clenched until they were almost painfully tight. His blood flow increased.
Ramsay shifted in the basin uncomfortably and lowered a hand. It helped with the discomfort.
A guttural groan left the mad dog's cracked lips, and though he did not care, water splashed over the edges of the basin as his arm moved up and down as he worked to satiate his overwhelming urge.
If she could not be with him here now, then the memory of his wolf would have to suffice for now. Ramsay exhaled slowly, letting his own hand wind around his cock and he lost himself in the nearly impossible fantasy that it was Sansa's body that sheathed him now instead of his own fucking bloody hand.
Hard and fast, he started pleasuring himself, the way that he had always liked it, the only way he knew how. His muscles tensed as he struggled to recreate the sensation of his wolf's long fingernails digging into the skin of his back as she squirmed and fought beneath him.
The water was warm, just like Sansa was. He slammed his tight fist against himself, and his breaths began gasping, and he violently shuddered as he released the tension of his mounting orgasm into the bath water, desperately trying to make himself believe that it was his lovely wife he filled.
"Seven bloody fucking hells," he cursed through gritted teeth, his teeth beginning to shatter as he came back down from his orgasm, the blinding white light behind his eyes slowly dancing away as his near giddiness faded. There was silence and only the sounds of his heavy breathing filled the cabin. His breaths were low and raspy sounding. But Ramsay's urge was still not satiated.
His blood still pulsed, and his erection was almost painful. His heart still pounded relentlessly against his ribcage until the heart in his chest was numbed. He laid back against the tub.
He kept his eyes closed and tried to remember the moistness between her legs when he had come to her last and taken her. Ramsay rolled his stiff shoulders to ease the ache.
After Sansa Stark had returned home to Winterfell, he thought next to nothing of Myranda. Sansa was fairer and more beautiful than the kennel master's daughter, like a princess from the tales of old parents told their younglings. He had watched with envy when Sansa would converse with other men close to his age, usually guards passing by or on occasion, a visiting bannerman from a Northern House. He'd felt his rage boil. But then he remembered that Sansa Stark was his wife.
He closed his eyes and pretended her soft hands were on him, and soon, soon enough, once he found his wife, they really would be. He lowered his head, and his shadow raven messy black hair fell about his face. His skin, the skin that he could still feel that had not been damaged by Father moons ago, a result of Roose believing him to be responsible for Domeric's death, was now ice-cold. He feverishly splashed the water onto his face and water sloshed against the sides of the tub. He scrubbed hard at his face with the heels of his hand, grinding his teeth in anger.
His wounds from Father, his scars, did not hurt him anymore, but his left side was so badly damaged that Ramsay felt nothing at all.
There was a part of him that thought he would rather feel the pain, to feel something.
Ramsay exhaled a shaky breath and ducked underneath the cold water, staying submerged and holding his breath, wetting his hair. He grabbed a bar of soap and lathered. He rinsed and water hit the wooden floorboards of the ship's cabin as he stepped out of the water, smacking the nearby sideboard as he found the comb that Reek had laid out for him.
He purposefully slowed his actions as he came to stand in front of the mirror. He combed out his hair slowly, almost methodically. His hair was getting a little curlier as it grew longer, but it would do. He stiffened and gnashed his teeth as again Sansa's voice filled his eardrums, which had begun to ring with a horribly fatigued ringing he would give anything not to hear.
Ramsay….
Sansa Stark haunted him. His long and pale fingers clenched into shaking fists as he brought his hands up to pound against the sides of his head, hitting against his black hair with desperation, seeing on tufts and yanking on his hair so hard that he swore he heard the roots of his hair scream in protest. Sansa's face was everywhere. It was all that Ramsay could see since discovering her missing, which had admittedly been the only time in his wretched life that he had ever known fear. It was the fear that she had run from him, that some other man would steal her and lay claim to his rightful heir.
Every time he closed his eyes, his wife was there, with Sansa's bright and wide and innocent smile shining against his eyelids, burning the image permanently into his retinas. Ramsay desperately wanted to carve that pretty smile right off her pretty face because he knew that her lovely smile wasn't smiling at him.
And when his eyes were open, she was all he could see, he was stuck on her blue eyes which called to him without words with just the power of a single look. Except he knew they were never looking at him. He wondered if she was imagining someone else. A man who was good.
A man who was most certainly not him. It made him want to gouge out her eyes, then she could look at no man ever again. If she was not looking at him and him alone, then she did not need her eyes to see at all then, aye? Gods, but even now he could practically feel his hands running through her soft red hair. He should not let her permeate his every waking thought but he knew no amount of trying to convince himself would matter. Sansa had him wound around her little finger and his wife did not even know it. He would have given her anything, gowns, jewels, whatever she wanted if it meant that he would see her smile, and smiling because of him.
Perhaps she did know, and that's why she would snap at him specifically whenever he would come to her. That was why her icy gaze would linger on him the longest when their paths happened to cross in the corridors, before he had taken to keeping her locked in their shared chamber, not trusting her to be alone with even a male guard.
That was why her slaps to his face never failed to send violent shivers down his spine whenever he purposefully baited her with his words. No other man could handle such a prize like Sansa, and it infuriated Ramsay more than he cared to admit to knowing she had fled.
He would have given her anything she wanted, as long as she stayed and obeyed him.
Father had told him once that his growing obsession with the Stark girl even after they had wed was not healthy and more than stupid, to which Ramsay had punished Reek for Father's insults, as he could not very well raise a hand against his lord father, now, could he?
That had been before he had killed him, of course. He cared nothing for the consequences because his bastard of a father had absolutely no right to speak out on his desire for Sansa Stark.
The ship had long since sailed for the mad dog to see any small semblance of reason.
Even now, as he stood in front of the mirror, all he could see was Sansa standing behind him and the feelings she invoked within him and brought out of him. Feelings he'd thought to be buried.
Feelings of arousal, aggravation, and…admiration. Perhaps …affection.
He gnashed his teeth together and shook his head violently, ripping his gaze away from the monster in the mirror. Why had she fled? Why couldn't she just choose him willingly, of her own volition?
Ramsay did not think he could stomach this. When they arrived at the Isles, he would rip apart the whole bloody village, wherever his wolf of a wife was hiding, until he found her.
He would not stand by idly while the last wolf of Winterfell who'd somehow managed to ensnare herself in his darkening heart slipped from his fingers. Not a second time. His wife would be his and his alone.
One way or another, he would have Sansa all to himself. Ramsay nodded and licked his teeth as he left the cabin to head above deck, suddenly desperate for fresh air.
Ramsay…bring me home, Ramsay.
He slowly swiveled his head in the direction of the stairs. His lips twitched as they tilted in a wide grin.
"I'm coming, Sansa," he whispered, his voice hoarse and acrid. "I'm coming. I'm coming to bring you home."
Most people would spout the saying that love made a man's heart grow stronger, and that love was the death of duty.
Though in Ramsay Bolton's case, his love for Sansa Stark was an obsession, and it only made his heart blacker.
THE faint sound of a crackling fire in the hearth and the comforting, if not slightly smothering feeling of warmth greeted Sansa as she slowly returned to consciousness and the land of the living. She blinked forcefully, trying to rid her lashes from the crust of 'sleep' that must have accumulated while she slept.
She hissed in pain, grinding her teeth as she quickly discovered that the hand she was using to rub the sleep from her eyes was the same one she had injured when the ship had crashed.
Sansa gently tucked the bandaged appendage back underneath her covers, her brow furrowing in confusion. She sat up slowly, opening her mouth in the hopes of speaking to voice her concern if there was anyone in the room with her, and yet, her throat was parched and sore and she was unable to make much of a sound at all other than a pitiful croak. She let out a frustrated sigh and sat up straighter, looking around herself as her eyes adjusted to the dimly lit surroundings of her new environment. Sansa's first thought was that whoever had brought her here could not possibly be an enemy, someone who harbored ill intentions towards her at all. If anything, the fact that she was warm and comfortable in this room was surely a sign that she was safe here.
Wherever 'here' was. No enemy would trouble themselves to comfort their captive. For a long moment, she was horrifyingly disoriented.
She looked for the man who so strongly resembled her husband, but the stranger with the piercing eyes of catlike green was nowhere to be found.
She had just had the blankets thrown off of her when yesterday's events began to come back to her in a flash of knowing so strong that it very nearly stole the breath from her burning lungs.
She swallowed and looked to the door. Her eyes lingered there as if she half expected Ramsay himself to burst through the door and once more start berating her and laying a hand against her in anger. Which he undoubtedly would do, the bastard once he discovered her missing.
She swallowed and looked to the door, knowing that she would have no other choice but to step through it and venture outside.
Somewhere out there was the man who had saved her life, and the answers that she so desperately sought now. She rose from the bed and hurriedly dressed, raking her fingers through her tousled red hair, and wishing she had a hairbrush but for now, this would have to do.
She did not want to greet whoever might be waiting for her outside looking anything less than the lady she was. Sansa stepped out into the hallway and waited, gingerly closing the door behind her as she did so. She moved slowly so that the man if he was nearby, would not think she was trying to escape him again.
"Hello?" she called softly. She was greeted with nothing but silence. She lingered in the middle of the hall and waited nervously. There was not a single sound in the corridor. She wondered where she was, and immediately set the kitchens as her destination, as the low rumbling growl in her stomach demanded that she eat and eat now, as she was now eating for two.
She was hungry, despite the anxiety that was worming its way into the pit of her stomach.
She aimlessly wandered the halls in search of the kitchens. Sansa had no idea for how long she was lost, but after nearly an hour of searching, she was close to giving up.
She was growing increasingly frustrated, for whoever owned this Keep, it seemed had a strange sense of humor when it came to the design of the building.
It seemed every door she opened led to another hallway, and then another room, and then she would be right back to where she started, like a labyrinth purposefully designed with the intent to keep people lost.
At the peak of Sansa's frustration, she found herself in front of a set of wide double oak doors that were locked. She jiggled the handle, suddenly desperate to get in, thinking that this had to be the kitchens, she was sure, only that it was jammed. A voice behind her spoke up.
"That is the kitchen, my lady, if that is what you're looking for."
Sansa nearly let out a scream as she jumped when she heard a woman's voice from behind her and had to clamp a hand over her mouth to stifle the tiny yell that threatened to escape her lips.
She turned to see a woman, as tall as Brienne of Tarth, if not taller, standing there, holding a torch, in a light blue dress that briefly reminded her of the one her former handmaiden, Shae, used to wear. It complemented her tanned skin tone and brought out the rich hues of her hair, Sansa thought and was quick to admire her attire. Her hair was long, dark, and rippling, though currently plaited back into a low ponytail to keep it out of the way, and her thin brows were furrowed into a slight frown as she looked at Sansa guardedly.
"I-I'm…very sorry, I-I got lost," she whispered in a small voice, to which the tall woman's lips tugged upward in a ghost of a smile.
"Yes, I could hear you moving around. You and your little one must be starving," she told her, a slight teasing lilt to her tone as she strode forward and fidgeted with a ring of keys in her hand and began to unlock the door. "Here, let me," the woman offered Sansa kindly.
A faint pink blush speckled its way along her cheeks as her hand instinctively drifted to her stomach. She wondered if everyone in this entire Keep knew that Ramsay's babe burgeoned within her, though with any luck, her child would never know its father's cruelty.
"Y-you could hear me?" Sansa asked. "Wh-where were you?" And why didn't you come to get me? Is what she wanted to ask this wench, but did not, for she was suddenly much too shy to speak.
"I did not know you were lost, my lady, forgive me," she answered professionally in a crisp and polite tone, and it took Sansa a moment to realize the question the handmaiden had answered was not the one she had voiced aloud, and she was taken aback by it. The handmaiden stepped back and lingered by the door and allowed Sansa to enter the kitchens first.
Her nervous eyes made a quick sweeping scan of the kitchen, and she spotted a basket of hardtack bread on a small wooden sideboard near the hearth, and that was all she needed. In a rush, her hunger pangs overpowering her need for courtesies and proper edict, she was across the room, grabbing the basket off the sideboard and ripping off a bite of bread.
She let out a tiny moan of satisfaction at how good it tasted, relieved to be eating food that she knew would not later be brought up as gorge, thanks to her heaving stomach and the rolling waves of the sea. Sansa had to struggle with herself to remain polite as she ate.
She wanted nothing more in her ravenous hunger to pick up the entire basket of hardtack bread and shove it into her mouth whole. But the handmaiden standing by the door and watching her curiously kept her from doing so. She tried to eat as dainty as she could.
When she was finished, she felt full, if not a little bit sick, and set the basket back down onto the sideboard and leaned her palms against the wooden board for support.
Her mouth suddenly felt dry, and she began to rummage through the kitchen in search of a chalice, settling for the first one she found that had a nick on its side.
Three chalices of water were downed in minutes, and she was filling a fourth when she heard the handmaiden by the door let out a little chuckle.
"It is good to see that you have an appetite," she said, leaning against the doorpost and keeping her arms across her chest.
Sansa wiped her mouth on the back of her hand and spun around to find the tall dark-haired handmaiden staring at her quizzically in a way she wasn't sure she liked, or what to make of.
There was something familiar about her, but she couldn't quite put her finger on why this woman seemed familiar, though she was confident the two of them had never met before in past, she was sure. Though as the woman stepped forward and smiled softly, Sansa felt some of the tension that had gathered in her shoulders leave her, and she allowed herself to relax a little in the company of this stranger.
Remembering her courtesies, she added, "I-I'm very sorry, I must not have caught your name. What is it?" Sansa asked nervously.
The older woman's face fell slightly, and it did not escape Sansa's attention that she almost looked hurt at her having to ask.
"You can remember nothing? My name is Tallanda, I…ah…I'm one of the ones who helped bring you back, though Maester Banal and Lord Bolton can claim most of the credit," she chirped, not noticing how Sansa's face drained of color, what little of it was left, at the mention of her surname, or if she did notice, she pretended not to see, for which Sansa was confused by as the handmaiden's motives.
With a twinge of guilt, she stared down at her bare feet and wiggled her tones against the icy coldness of the stones.
"L-Lord Bolton? Ramsay, he's—he's responsible for this?" she whispered hoarsely, her chest beginning to tighten and constrict until it was almost painful to draw in a breath.
If her lord husband had somehow managed to catch up to her this fast, then she wished they'd have not brought her back at all. They should have left her to die on the beach.
"What?" Tallanda gave her a funny smile. "No, lady. Domeric, he—" She had been about to reveal that Domeric was Ramsay's brother, but then caught herself, unsure how much she could reveal.
Domeric's business was not her own and yet, no one needed to be hanged for challenging the information now that Domeric's secret was out, that he'd faked his death all those years ago and had since made himself a new life here on the islands.
But she remembered what Domeric had told her, how this girl had whispered his bastard brother's name before losing consciousness, and she had uttered it with such unbridled fear.
There could be no doubt in her mind that Domeric's brother had hurt this young woman, somehow. Tallanda cringed and then remembered she owed the redhead an answer. She blinked rapidly as she came back to herself a bit and nervously began to play with the various rings on her fingers. "He is a kind man, my lady, but quite timid and shy around new people. Human contact with that man has been little here in this Keep aside from myself and our maester. I don't know what you've heard of the Bolton family, but he is not a monster like the rest of them. He is...alone in the heart, and not one of many," Tallanda spoke, the faintest twinges of affection seeping through the surface of her voice, her eyes softening as she spoke of Lord Bolton. "You would be wise to speak to him yourself, for only you can be an adequate judge of his character."
"Thank you," she blurted out, her words clumsy and blunt as her hand came to rest over the slight bulge in her stomach. She tried to offer the lady Tallanda a weak smile, though it felt strained. She could feel her cheeks' reluctance to be molded so falsely. "Were it not for you and... Lord Bolton... and the maester, I would be dead."
She shivered, still not completely comfortable with thinking about what would have happened to her if they had not found her on the shore and brought her back. Her mind felt like it was reeling as she struggled to process the news that her husband had a brother.
She had thought she'd seen mention of the man's name listed in the archives in Winterfell's library tower, though Roose Bolton had rarely spoken of his trueborn son, the topic too sore.
The two women stood in silence for a moment until Tallanda broke the pause by clicking her tongue, her eyes making a quick scan of Sansa as she noted that their guest was having immense difficulty in keeping her eyes open.
"Your thanks is really not necessary, my lady, but...you're welcome. You are still weak and should not be up and moving around so much. Were I you, I would head back to your rooms. Sleep a while longer. I will let Lord Bolton know you are awake and wish to speak with him," Tallanda offered. "I will also see what I can do about finding you appropriate clothing that fits. Surely, one of the girls here in the castle is about your size. I would give you mine, but I am too tall," she grinned, and when she smiled, there was a little bit of rake in that smile, though Sansa liked it.
She was almost reminded of Arya and Shae in a way when the handmaiden smiled like that.
Sansa nodded, trying to convey her gratitude towards this woman with just a look.
The beautiful giant of a woman returned her look with one of her own, saying there was no need, and instead, ushered her outside with a wave of her arm.
She was led back down the corridor by Tallanda, looking around at the magnificence of the Keep, and she remembered that she had neglected to ask the handmaiden where they were. The Keep seemed grand, old, and in a bit of ill repair, but still magnificent, nonetheless. It was obvious it was well-cared for.
As she walked down the cold stone hallways, which were lit by the torches in their sconces on the walls, Sansa reached out to touch the cool walls that were warmed by the torches. She found herself enjoying the cool more. For some strange reason, she felt close to her parents at that moment.
I may look like a Tully and wear the Bolton surname now, she thought to herself. But I am still a Stark.
She was so enraptured by the various portraits that covered the wall that she had not realized she wasn't watching where she was going and ran straight into Tallanda's back as she walked.
She jumped back, apologized with a bright pink blush covering her face, and nervously waited for Tallanda to speak.
The handmaiden looked at the coloring of Sansa's cheeks with almost a critical interest, though thankfully, Tallanda looked away soon enough for it not to be too entirely strange.
"Your room, Lady," she murmured politely and slowly pushed the door open. "I hope that you will be comfortable here with us and that you find your lodgings acceptable. I have a call bell that you may ring if anything is needed. I will fetch the maester and Lord Bolton to come to speak to you, but for the moment, rest. Your eyes are darker than Lord Bolton's, you're starting to look like a grumkin if you don't get enough sleep." She shook her head in mock disappointment and sighed.
Sansa tried to smile, though could not manage the energy. She merely nodded and slipped past the tall handmaiden and into the room, her lips parting as she did so as the handmaiden trailed behind and began to light candles that were scattered throughout the room for warmth and light.
Sansa gave a nod to Tallanda as she finished and was out the door in a twist of her skirts, and Sansa was once more left alone in her room. She stood there for a moment, rooted to her spot, exhausted and sore.
She needed to bathe and change, and she was grateful that a small tub had been filled with water and set directly in front of the fireplace for her. She got into the steaming hot tub and let out a low groan as her muscles relaxed and she allowed herself to luxuriate in the warm and silky water.
The bath itself felt heavenly, but Sansa could not truly allow herself to enjoy it. Her muscles ached and she was stricken with a constant feeling of fear and confusion. Ramsay's brother was alive.
She could only think what was to come in the coming hours, what if the lady Tallanda had said was true.
If this Bolton was different, not like the rest of the monsters that made up the nest of vipers. She scrubbed herself clean with a bar of soap and the bathing cloth, forcing herself to step out from the steaming hot bath and into the cooling air.
You don't have a choice, she tried to tell herself. If you must, take the one bit of power you do hold over him, and use it. If Lord Domeric is like Ramsay and he wants you in that way, you have no further claim to virtue.
Still, she shuddered slightly. She wrapped a robe around herself tightly as with deep, slow breaths, Sansa did what she could to try to slow down her racing heart. She wondered what she could have ever done to handle Ramsay differently, but nothing was coming to her mind right now.
You fled because you had to. He gave you no choice. Now be strong. For you. For the baby. He's counting on you.
She rested her hand on her stomach and tried not to think about what Lord Bolton would want of her in exchange for saving her life, though she suspected the man's help would not come without a price, and she feared to hear what it was.
He might be inside of you later. He might see you naked. Accept it, grow up, and get over it.
The words in her mind were now aimed rather harshly at herself. It was how she'd survived the worst of Ramsay's abuse, and before that, Joffrey's. She had forced herself to grow up the day Joffrey had her father's head cut off in front of the entire town square for all to see, and it was eventually how she had convinced herself to flee Winterfell.
Now, she hoped it would see her through this. Sansa nodded slowly to herself as she collapsed on top of her bed and burrowed underneath the covers, her fatigue and exhaustion quickly taking hold of her, and she wanted nothing more than to sleep for at least a hundred years. She still felt immense guilt at her reaction to him when she'd first woken and found him staring at her and wondered if it would be appropriate to find and apologize to him. With due time…perhaps after dinner.
She rolled over onto her side and clutched at herself, trying to get warm.
Take care of him, she thought as she nodded as she allowed herself to drift off as she felt her eyelids grow heavy. As she fell into a deep, peaceful sleep, the beginnings of understanding were beginning to form slowly in her mind. She thought she knew how she could survive and stay alive, what it was that Lord Bolton would want. Sansa thought she knew how to take care of Domeric.