All the powers in the universe are already ours.
It is we who have put our hands before our eyes and cry that it is dark.
-Swami Vivekananda
Chapter Eleven – When Innocence Was Lost
Caryssa was waiting in the throne room for her father after another meeting of the Small Council. She had spent a large portion of her first day in King's Landing with her betrothed and she realized that he was not as terrible as the rumor mill would have her believe, though she did not dare tell him that. He seemed to enjoy the benefits that came with his reputation as a man without honor, though she knew that it bothered him when it was thrown back into his face. Jaime Lannister had surprised her, asking her many questions about herself, and genuinely seeming to care about her answers. It did occur to her that he was simply pretending, but to make her life easier for her, she would pretend to believe him.
That morning had been a particularly difficult one for her. She had been swept out of her bed by Septa Mordane, Sansa and, most surprising of all, the Queen and her handmaidens for a fitting for her wedding gown. Cersei had given a lot of input, claiming that the bride of the great Jaime Lannister had to look the part. Caryssa had stayed mostly mute throughout the whole process, only nodding or humming her agreement with the Queen or Sansa. Her mind was with her mother, wishing that she was there to help her. How could she even marry without her mother's guiding hand there to aide her in everything? Her mother would not be attending her wedding, being in Winterfell, and that made her heartache immensely.
Yet, when she saw her father striding towards her, she smiled widely at the sight of him, refusing to burden him with her own problems when he looked tired from his meeting.
She stretched out a hand, and her father accepted it, pressing a fatherly kiss to it, before looping her arm through his, glad to see her done with her fitting and to be done with those men who had been badgering him all morning long.
Just as Caryssa was about to open her mouth to ask him how his meeting had gone, a voice stopped them in their tracks.
"Lord Stark," An old, raspy voice called, and both Starks turned round. An old man shuffled towards them, wheezing slightly, and Caryssa kept a polite smile on her face as he stopped before them, a leer in his eyes for her. "Is this…your daughter? A true beauty, just like they say."
"Is there something you wanted, Grand Maester?" Ned reminded, wanting to get his unsavory gaze away from his daughter.
"Oh, yes!" The old man remembered, holding up a rolled up letter in his hand. "I meant…to give this to you earlier. So forgetful these days. A raven from Winterfell this morning."
Caryssa watched her father take the small parchment from Pycelle, nodding at the old man to dismiss him, and then, instead of reading the letter with her father like she wanted, she watched the approach of Littlefinger.
"Good news?" He drawled, as he strode towards them, smiling at Caryssa, making her shiver unpleasantly as he did yesterday. Neither Stark answered him, but it did not deter him. "It's lovely to see you again, Lady Caryssa. Perhaps you'd like to share your news with your mother."
"She is in Winterfell, Lord Baelish." Caryssa replied, attempting to be polite in front of her father, even though she wanted to be far away from him.
"Is she?" Baelish smirked, and both Ned and Caryssa watched him as he walked away, before following the man, understanding the hidden message in his words and his expression.
Catelyn Stark was here in King's Landing, and Lord Baelish knew where.
Without asking any questions for fear of who would overhear, they saddled their horses and followed the Master of Coin deeper into the city, until they stopped outside of a pleasure house. Caryssa was less than impressed as she dismounted, keeping step with her father, who looked even less pleased than she did.
"I thought that she'd be safest in here. One of several such establishments I own." Littlefinger informed them, Caryssa wrinkling her nose in disgust as a man left the building with rumpled clothes and an all too happy grin spread across his lips.
Ned, displeased by what he thought was a game of Littlefinger's concocting, grabbed the man by the neck and held him by the throat against a wall, much to his surprise.
"You're a funny man," Caryssa watched him grip the man's throat a little tighter as he struggled. "Huh? A very funny man."
"Ned!"
Hearing her mother's voice, Caryssa rushed inside with as much dignity as she could manage when entering a whorehouse, climbing a flight of steps, just ahead of her father. As soon as she caught sight of her mother, she almost completely forgot herself and bounded into her mother's arms.
"Mother!" Caryssa sighed happily, feeling safe again. Of course, she felt safe with her father, or Jory, or even Jaime, but there was something about a mother's embrace that just took all life's worries away. Caryssa and Catelyn gripped each other tight, only letting each other go, so her father and mother could embrace. So overjoyed was she to see her mother again, that it almost slipped her mind that she was supposed to be in Winterfell. "Mother, what are you doing here?"
Her mother sobered up then, releasing her father, but not his hands. Her mother grasped his hand tightly as she looked him in the eye.
"There was an attempt on Bran's life. An assassin created a diversion by setting a fire just away from his room, and then crept in intending to take his life, but I held him off as best I could, until his direwolf finished the job," Her mother explained, her eyes flickering to her daughter who had a hand clasped tightly over her throat. Her brother's life was threatened, again, and she had not even known about it. Then she saw the bandages around her mother's hands. Caryssa stepped forward and tugged one away from her father, running a finger across the tight cloth. "He cut my hands with the same knife he was going to kill Bran with. Petyr told us that it was his knife until he lost it in a bet against Tyrion Lannister."
Caryssa turned her blue eyes onto Littlefinger, who kept up a stoic expression as he locked eyes with her. She did not trust him, but she did trust Tyrion, even if it was a tenuous trust, forged from their shared hobbies and her brother's crippling. She did not believe that Tyrion could have ordered her brother's murder. He was far too clever to leave a trail that would lead back to him, even if he had. Someone was implicating him, and she knew it was Littlefinger, though she did not know why.
"The mere suggestion that the queen's brother tried to kill your boy would be considered treason." Baelish stated, and her mother and father finally turned to face him, bringing him into their conversation.
"But we have proof. We have the blade."
"Which Lord Tyrion will say was stolen from him. The only man who could say otherwise has no throat, thanks to your boy's wolf." Baelish replied, and Caryssa stared at him coolly.
"How did you lose this blade to Lord Tyrion? It's hard to imagine a man with a mind like yours could place a bad bet." Caryssa questioned, using a backhanded compliment to try and earn herself the truth.
"As I told your mother, I bet on Jaime Lannister in the tourney held in honor of Prince Joffrey's last namesday. I believed it was a safe bet, Ser Jaime is the best in the Seven Kingdoms, only he was unseated by Lord Loras Tyrell of Highgarden. I lost the dagger to Lord Tyrion, a man with better luck than I, it would seem."
Caryssa found it hard to believe that Tyrion, knowing how skilled his brother was, better than most people, would bet against him. The Lannisters could be dishonorable, but not to their own. She was beginning to question exactly what Littlefinger's motives were.
"Caryssa, Petyr has promised to help us find the truth," Her mother insisted, and Caryssa nodded, though she did not believe that the truth is what 'Petyr' would help them find. Early graves, Caryssa thought, that's what he wishes us to find, except maybe mother. Her mother turned to her father, and pleaded with him to trust her friend. "He's like a little brother to me, Ned. He would never betray my trust."
"I'll try to keep you alive, Lord Stark, for her sake. A fool's task, admittedly, but I've never been able to refuse your wife anything." Baelish declared, but Caryssa did not like his tone. Jaime was right. He was still very much in love with her mother, and that was something that Caryssa did not like. Love was a powerful motivator, and it could drive even the most rational of people to perform the most horrendous of tasks.
"I won't forget this. You're a true friend." Her mother stated, her blue eyes wide and trusting as she looked at Littlefinger, while her daughter's were the opposite.
"Don't tell anyone. I have a reputation to maintain."
Caryssa was torn the next day. The king had summoned her to visit him in his solar, but she wanted to see her mother off, bid her farewell because she knew not when they would meet next. She debated with herself for quite a while that morning, but she knew a direct order to the king could not be ignored.
So she dressed herself in a blue gown, Tully blue for her mother, though she would not see it, slipped on a pair of silver shoes and strapped her knife to her leg, before placing all of her jewelry where it belonged; her brooch just under the bust of her dress, her necklace settling in the dip between her breasts, and her direwolf ring on the middle finger of her right hand. Once braiding her hair back, pulling it into an intricate bun, she left her rooms to start her day.
Caryssa could not stomach food that morning so did not break fast with her sisters, though she made sure that they had eaten well, and that the two direwolves were taken out by Jory, before she left to meet with the king.
She had almost gotten lost, the keep was very large and there were so many unfamiliar hallways and doors that had her completely turned about until she found a servant happy enough to help her find her way. The girl, no more than six and ten, nattered on the entire way, about the goings on in the keep, about how excited the castle was for the wedding and the tourney for the Hand of the King that would come after.
Caryssa nodded or gave polite, short answers whenever the girl aimed a question to her, until they finally reached their destination and she came face to face with her betrothed. She took a moment to thank the servant girl, dismissing her, and then to shamelessly (almost shamelessly, her propriety got the better of her eventually) ogle her intended, before approaching him and the door he guarded.
"Miss me already, little wife?" He teased her, and she gave him an indulgent smile, before answering.
"We are not married yet, Ser Jaime, and I am not here to see you, my white knight. The king requested my presence," Caryssa replied, and Jaime nodded, suddenly serious, more serious than she had ever seen him, and quickly opened the door for her. "Thank you."
Jaime nodded at her once, a small smile on his lips, before he closed the door behind her, and she stepped a little further into the room, waiting to be told by King Robert what he had wanted her for.
"There you are, girl! Come sit down, have a glass of wine! Ser Barristan and I were talking about first kills!"
She did as the king instructed, taking the seat opposite his at his desk, and taking the glass offered to her by Robert's squire, Lancel Lannister. She quietly spoke her thanks, taking a gulp of the sweet Dornish wine, far sweeter than she was used to, to calm her nerves. The king simply eyed her for a moment, before he continued his conversation.
"Yes, it's been a long time. But I still remember every face," The king said, and Caryssa quirked her lips, wondering why the king had summoned her to his solar just to listen to his war stories. "Do you remember your first?"
Caryssa turned her head, looking back at Ser Barristan, as he stepped a few steps closer as he replied.
"Of course, Your Grace."
"Who was it?" The King pressed, and Caryssa had to admit, that she was curious about it herself. She had always loved her father's stories, though he did not tell the particularly gruesome ones; those came from Ser Rodrick when she begged him to tell her about his own battles and wars he had fought in.
"A Tyroshi. Never learned the name." Ser Barristan answered from a few steps behind her, and Caryssa turned back to face the king, not wanting to crane her neck around anymore. Though she did not know what was worse; the smell of wine and sweat that was rolling off the king in pungent waves or the neck ache she would receive looking at the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard.
"Hmm. How did you do it?" The King questioned, his voice a little slurred from his intake of wine.
"Lance through the heart."
"Quick one. Lucky for you. Mine was some Tarly boy at the Battle of Summerhall," Her father had told her of that battle. She couldn't remember what had happened as she had been so young, but she remembered the name. "My horse took an arrow so I was on foot, slogging through the mud. He came running at me, this dumb high-born lad, thinking he could end the rebellion with a single swing of his sword. I knocked him down with the hammer. Gods, I was strong then. Caved in his breastplate. Probably shattered every rib he had. Stood over him, hammer in the air. Right before I brought it down, he shouted, 'Wait! Wait,'."
The king laughed quietly, taking his eyes off the man behind me to turn them to me.
"They never tell you how they all shit themselves. They don't put that part in the songs. Stupid boy," King Robert muttered, before speaking louder again, returning to the now instead of his memory. "Now the Tarlys bend the knee like everyone else. He could have lingered on the edge of the battle with the smart boys, and today his would be making him miserable, his son would be ingrates, and he'd be waking three times in the night to piss into a bowl. Wine!"
His squire seemed to hesitate a moment, before moving to pour him some wine. Caryssa winced as only a small amount trickled into the wine glass. The king would be displeased by that.
"Lancel," The king scoffed, as Lancel tried to shake a few more drops from the gold jug. "Gods, what a stupid name. Lancel Lannister. Who named you? Some halfwit with a stutter?"
"Perhaps, you should have him fetch some more wine, Your Grace, as your supply seems to have run dry." Caryssa pointed out to him, trying to save the man some torment. The king was not a very kind drunk when it came to Lannisters it appeared.
"She's right. Go get more wine," The King ordered, and his squire obeyed, shooting her an almost grateful look as he departed. When he opened the door, Caryssa saw Jaime, his body half tilted towards the door, almost as he'd been listening. "Tell our cousin to get in here. Kingslayer! Get in here."
Caryssa saw Jaime's jaw clench and unclench, as he pulled back whatever sarcastic or angry quips he had and held them in, before he turned, skirting round Lancel, and moved into the room. Lancel closed the door behind him, all too eager to be free of the king's torment.
"Surrounded by Lannisters. Every time I close my eyes I see their blond hair and their smug, satisfied faces. It must wound your pride, huh?" The King questioned, taunting Jaime as Caryssa sat quietly, her cup of wine gripped tightly between her hands. "Standing out there like a glorified sentry. Jaime Lannister, son of the mighty Tywin, forced to mind the door while your king eats and drinks and shits and fucks."
"Being a member of the Kingsguard is a high honor, I am told. Ensuring the safety of the king is a feat that only the most noble of men can undertake." Caryssa defended, though King Robert laughed loudly at her words.
"She's already battling your side. You're a lucky man, Lannister, that Ned Stark thought you fit to marry his daughter," Jaime simply nodded, though he shot an odd look towards Caryssa, possibly wondering why she would stick up for him in the first place. "Come on. We're telling war stories for the lady. Who was your first kill, not counting old men?"
"One of the outlaws of the brotherhood." Jaime answered, and Ser Barristan looked at him.
"I was there that day. You were only a squire, 16 years old."
"You killed Simon Toyne with a counter riposte. Best move I ever saw." Jaime enthused, and Caryssa smiled at his enthusiasm, in spite of herself. He clearly respected his lord commander, as much as Ser Barristan seemed to respect him, regardless of his 'Kingslayer' status. It reminded her of how Jory spoke to her father sometimes.
"A good fighter, Toyne, but he lacked stamina."
"Your outlaw..." King Robert trailed off, gaining back their attention, and Caryssa's. "Any last words?"
"I cut his head off, so no." Jaime replied, casually, and Caryssa's smile fell. While she enjoyed war stories, she did not like to take death so casually. Death changes people. Killing someone, having blood on your hands, it stays with you, haunting your very dreams. Or rather, it should.
"Hmm. What about Aerys Targaryen? What did the Mad King say when you stabbed him in the back? I never asked. Did he call you a traitor? Did he plead for a reprieve?"
Caryssa froze stock still. The Mad King, she knew, was a touchy topic for her future husband, whether he would like to admit it or not. He would not say why he decided to stab him in the back after all that time and all that blood shed that could have been avoided, nor did he like to really be reminded of the event itself. Yet he was, almost daily.
Jaime had been quiet, his eyes narrowed and his jaw taut just enough for Caryssa to know that he was unhappy with the line of questioning, until the King had finished asking his questions. A beat of silence came after that, before he replied.
"He said the same thing he'd been saying for hours. 'Burn them all'," Jaime revealed, and Caryssa did not know what to make of his words. Jaime saw the confusion in her wide, blue eyes, but did not say anymore. He had not even told his father the true reason he had killed Aerys Targaryen, he doubted very much that his little wife would be understanding enough to comprehend his reasoning behind it. After all, she was her father's daughter. "If that's all, Your Grace…"
"No, that's not all, Lannister," King Robert stopped him from leaving, his eyes turning to Caryssa. "We haven't heard about Lady Stark's first kill yet."
Caryssa froze in her seat, cursing the drunken king in her mind for saying anything at all, and cursing her father for having told him her worst moment, her ever-present nightmare. Her jaw clenched and her knuckles turned white from the force with which she was gripped the wine cup in her hand. Fearing she might smash it, she placed it down onto his desk.
"Come on, girl, tell us how it happened."
"I think I would prefer to leave, Your Grace, with your permission." Caryssa said, moving to stand, but the king barked at her to sit down, so she lowered herself reluctantly back into her seat.
"You do not have my permission, now sit and tell us the story. How old were you?"
"Seven, Your Grace. It was my seventh namesday." Caryssa bit out, hating that she had to sit there and relive the worst moment of her life in front of the king, the lord commander of his kingsguard and her future husband.
"Gods, your namesday? How did it happen again? Your father told me a couple of times, but I don't remember the details." The king pressed, and Caryssa kept her eyes on her fingers, on the wooden direwolf ring that her brother had carved her for her last namesday. It bared its teeth at her, and, for a moment, it was like seeing the blood on her hands again. Crimson red dripping down her arms, sticking to her dress and hair.
"He was a new guard in Winterfell, a farmer's son from nearby who could not be housed by his family anymore, and he was drunk. Extremely so. The feast was still going on, but I had gone to bed. He had crept into my room, and he tried to…" Caryssa trailed off, her words sticking in her throat, but she forced them down, deciding to simply continue with the story. "I'd been having nightmares all week, a scary story told by my old wet nurse that I couldn't shake off, and I had snuck one of my father's old daggers into my room, sleeping with it under my pillow…When he climbed on top of me, I fought him as best I could, but he easily overpowered me, but…I managed to grab the knife. I stabbed him in the chest and in the throat, wherever I could reach."
Caryssa's eyes had glazed over as she told her story with her eyes still on her hands, the haunting image of the boy's blood on her skin, on her dress, as vivid as the day it had happened.
"I'm sorry, Lady Stark, that you went through that." Ser Barristan offered, and Caryssa nodded, finally lifting her eyes off of her hands and placing them upon the king. King Robert was almost taken about by the burning anger in them, even if it reminded him of his Lyanna. He remembered one time he had laughed at her when she expressed a desire to be a knight, and she had glared at him with such hatred that he had apologized profusely, until she had forgiven him.
"He was just seventeen. No older than my brother is now. He had a father who loved him, and three sisters who worshiped the ground he walked on. He was drunk, yes, but he was too drunk to have done anything. And I killed him. His blood is forever on my hands, and you make it sound like it was nothing, like it meant nothing," Caryssa hissed at him, her hands clenched together in her lap. "No man, woman or child deserves for their life to be cut short, no matter who or what they are. Your war stories and the tragedy in my past are completely different things, Your Grace, and, if you do not mind, I wish to leave now, before you humiliate me further."
The King was speechless it seemed, and simply nodded. Caryssa wasted no time in climbing to her feet, and sweeping out of the room, resisting the urge to slam the door closed behind her.
The King was a damn fool, she seethed in her mind, and not for the first time, Caryssa wished that she was in Winterfell, with her brothers. She wished her whole family were there, that the King had never gone to Winterfell, that her father had never accepted the role of the Hand of the King, and she wished that things were as they once were, when the past was where it belonged and no one pushed her to relive it or talk about it.
But it all had happened, and there was no changing the past. When she was seven years old, she had lost her innocence in a sense, and there was no way to reclaim it.
Nothing could change what had already been. Nothing could change what she had done, and one day, perhaps, she could learn to live with her past actions.
One day.
Another couple days passed and Caryssa did all she could to avoid her betrothed, and, for the most part, she was very successful. In lieu of her mother, the Queen, Septa Mordane and her new handmaiden, Daena, were planning her wedding, all three rarely asking for her input, though they did keep her busy with dress fittings and telling her their plans.
When she wasn't being whisked away because of wedding details, she was spending as much time as possible with her family. She would watch Arya with her dancing lessons with Syrio Forel, sometimes participating herself and she found she responded much better to the water dancing of the Braavosi than she did the regular Westerosi way. Sansa kept her occupied with walks with the direwolves in the gardens, and with more discussions of her wedding. Her sister was going to ask the gardeners if she could pick some flowers to weave so Caryssa would be wearing a flower crown; Sansa had found some white and winter roses she thought would complement her dress perfectly. If she were not with the girls, she trained with Jory in a secluded area, trying to better her skills with a blade so she could keep herself safer in the cesspool that was the capitol, or she would help her father sort through his thoughts about the matters of the Small Council, trying to help him elevate some of his burdens.
Her regular meetings with Cersei weren't something she particularly enjoyed, and she knew the Queen did not either, as both of them found ways to verbally belittle the other with as much tact and subtlety as they could manage in their war of words.
She had hidden herself away this day though, hiding under her bed like an infant when Daena had come in to look for her, needing some time alone. She had even sent Rhaenyra along with Arya to her dance lessons so anyone looking for her would go to the gardens assuming that she had gone to take the wolf for her daily walk.
So she sat needlepointing in the corner of her room, trying to occupy herself. She couldn't go riding, not alone or with Robb like she would in Winterfell, and she couldn't go to any of the places she had come to like in King's Landing, like the markets in Flea Bottom or the gardens or the royal tailor, as her father, as well as the King, had insisted on giving her an escort when she was wandering alone.
The she-wolf felt caged, and she was not happy about it.
Caryssa was staring down at the grey direwolf staring up at her, when she noticed that she was suddenly not alone. She turned her eyes upwards, eyes wide when she saw the familiar golden knight that was her husband, in only a matter of days. Jaime looked less than impressed as he gazed down at her from his place in the door.
"How did you get in here?" She questioned, placing her needlepoint to one side as she rose out of her chair.
"The door." Jaime replied, in a tone that said his answer should have been the obvious one.
"All right, let me rephrase that, why are you in here?" Caryssa pressed, her hands on her hips as she stepped a little closer to him, angry that he had violated her private space, also a little concerned that he was in here, while she was in the tower alone.
Her father was in another meeting with the Small Council, Sansa was in the gardens with Septa Mordane and Lady, Arya was at her dance lessons with Rhaenyra, and Daena was out searching for her somewhere. She was in her chambers, completely alone with the man who was to be her husband, the same man she had been avoiding ever since the king had forced her to admit her darkest secret. Only her father, her mother, Maester Luwin, Ser Rodrik, Jory, Robb, Jon and Theon knew about her seventh namesday…mishap, and now the king, Ser Barristan and her future husband knew about it too.
"You've been avoiding me." He did not even question it, he knew that she had been avoiding him and stated it as fact, leaving her no other choice but to admit it.
"I have."
"Because you think that I would think less of you for saving yourself from the advances of a drunken raper." Again he merely stated it, as though it was practically a truth that had tumbled from the lips of one of the gods.
"I do not particularly care if you think less of me. I care about how you found out. That secret was mine to choose when I revealed it, my past, my burden, and the king forced it out of me like it was sport, like it was funny to watch me wriggle and squirm as I relived every detail of it," Caryssa divulged, averting her eyes away from his. Pity was not something she wished to see aimed at her, especially not from a Lannister, and especially not from him. "It was my secret to tell, and I would have liked to have felt completely comfortable with you, and with our…coupling, before I told it."
"We are to be married in four days, you can call it a marriage, little wife. It won't kill you to accept it as such."
"I have accepted it!" Caryssa hissed at him, narrowing her eyes at him, not even realizing that he had stepped further into her room, closer to her than what would be deemed appropriate for two unmarried people alone and unsupervised.
"Have you? So you wouldn't mind if I do this?" Jaime said, before he took an extra step forward, raised her chin with two fingers and covered her mouth with his own.
Her first kiss with Jaime. At first she stood stock still, flummoxed by the sudden action, enraged by it even, because how dare he just attack her like that, but then her body betrayed her. Her eyes fluttered closed, her fists unclenched at her sides and moved to grip his arms, and her mouth moved against his. Jaime's arms moved to her waist, circling around her and pulling her body close to his, and she did not even protest it.
Caryssa's mind, or rather her sense, had seemed to disappear, as she simply melted into their shared embrace. Her hands trailed up his arms, realizing that she was feeling leather under her fingertips instead of cold armor, only then recognizing that he was not on duty that day as his white gold Kingsguard armor was nowhere to be seen, or felt rather. Her fingers danced along his shoulders, until they moved behind his neck and tangled themselves into that glorious golden mane.
Neither of them let go as they broke apart for air, Caryssa not even opening her eyes.
"You wouldn't mind that?" Jaime repeated, and Caryssa shook her head, before claiming his lips again, feeling a little wanton and wonderful at the same time.
Caryssa had only shared brief kisses with her brothers before, familial affection, and once with Theon. Many things were said about Caryssa Stark, but no one in Winterfell ever said that she backed away from a dare. Robb had dared her to kiss Theon, and, despite her hatred of the Iron Islander, she kissed him full on the lips for ten seconds, before pulling away and wiping her mouth with her brother's sleeve. That had been when she was eleven. The only other man she had kissed was Jory. That had been on her eighteen namesday, and she had gotten far drunker than she had wanted, and so had he, and they shared a rather sloppy, but no less passionate, kiss that neither spoke of again.
This kiss, or these kisses, were far different to all of those. This was like fire; it seemed to burn and soothe at the same time. Jaime's hands moved to the small of her back, pushing her even closer, eliminating all space between them. His mouth, Gods his mouth. She had once thought that he did not remain as celibate as a man of the Kingsguard should be, and with how his mouth both teased and took hers, she knew that she had been right, but she realized that she did not seem to care. His experience now made up for her lack of it.
She gasped in surprise as he nipped her bottom lip with his teeth, before soothing it with his tongue and just when she had opened her mouth to his, a squeal of surprise had them both springing apart.
Daena stumbled through her apologies, before backing out of the room, and just as Caryssa was about to follow her, smoothing down her hair and her dress, Jaime gripped her wrist and pulled her back into him, pressing a chaste kiss to her mouth.
"There will be a lot more of that come our wedding day, best prepare yourself for it." He muttered, stealing another kiss, before he let her go, leaving her alone once more in her room.
Caryssa pressed her fingertips to her swollen mouth, marveling at the tingling she still felt in them.
Perhaps, if kisses like that came with him, marriage to Jaime Lannister would not be as terrible as she had first thought it would be.
She may even enjoy it.
A/N:
Hello wonderful people!
Here it is! Chapter Eleven! So a lot happens, but most importantly, Jaime/Caryssa kiss! I didn't really want it to happen like that, that quickly, though they would have been betrothed now for two months and their wedding is the next chapter, but I thought that with the wedding being literally one chapter away, that it was realistic for Jaime to steal a kiss from her. But let me know what you think!
And according to the poll on my profile, everyone who voted wanted wedding smut. There were literally no 'NO' votes, all 'YES', so you guys were clearly eager. So I did write some, and no judging when you read it. I don't write smut usually. I don't like the thought that some kid might read it. So it could very well be terrible, and if it is, only constructive criticism is allowed!
Thank you to everyone who reviewed the last chapter;
DarylDixon'sLover, NicoleR85, HermioneandMarcus, Lucy Greenhill, MicroSpider, masquerade04, Blloom1234, Bella-swan11, babiluv22, Sparky She-Demon, Guest (1) and Guest (2).
Also thank you to all who favourited and followed, it means a lot to see that there's a lot of interest in this story!
The next chapter will be updated on the 24th of September, in two weeks time, and it will be called 'The White Wedding', though spoiler alert, it may just well be the only wedding that happens in Game of Thrones that doesn't end in death.
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the chapter,
SophStratt.