Author's Note: So I wouldn't be so cruel as to leave you all hanging too long after that last chapter! I have to take this moment to confess that I am in fact a SanSan fan, so a small element of that coupling will find its way into the story. If you're not a fan of them like myself, then perhaps I can convert you. Who knows? Anyway, here's the next chapter! Big leaps forward with the plot here, but it's necessary to get things really going where I want them. Enjoy!

"I thought the brothers of this island were sworn to a vow of silence," Amarah casually returned Sandor Clegane's hostile greeting as if he weren't mere inches from crushing her neck with one push of the arm that held her captive against the stable wall.

Clegane's anger dissipated only slightly at her flippant remark, but his eyes still brimmed with dangerous fury. Amarah knew Sandor Clegane was not a man to be trifled with. She had seen him kill children without batting an eye, and it wasn't a terrible stretch to the imagination to picture him disposing of her with equal nonchalance. Without Jaime or Brienne nearby to save her this time, she knew she would have to choose her words with the utmost care.

"Always the need to demonstrate your wit," Sandor returned in a low voice as he pressed in closer, digging his hard forearm further into her neck. "I've never been a very religious man, nor one to give too much thought for vows I never intended to keep."

It was becoming less easy to breathe with her windpipe trapped beneath the pressure of his weight, but Amarah somehow managed a response. "Then why come here?"

The powerful force pushing her against the stable wall lessened only a fraction at her question. "I was tired of it all," he snarled, sounding much like the moniker that had been assigned to him so long ago. "I'm no knight, just a dog that was tired of being at some little shit king's beck and call. Kingslayer might take pride in wearing that white cloak to serve a king of his own seed, but I wanted no more of it."

His impassioned speech condemning the knighthood sparked a sudden realization in her. "You're angry at me for finding you."

His nostrils flared then in the dim light and his chest expanded as he took a deep breath, almost like he was exerting an inner will not to dispose of her at that very moment. She had difficulty masking her surprise when he stepped abruptly away, releasing her from his iron grip and restoring much needed air to her rapidly depleting lungs.

"Not angry enough to kill you," he asserted in that voice so roughened by many trials of life. However, he underscored that sentiment with a menacing step forward. "But if you try to approach me again, my lady, I won't be so forgiving."

It hadn't been hard to detect the threat in his warning, but then he hadn't tried to disguise it. In the interest of her own self-preservation, Amarah should have let him leave after he turned away, but she couldn't just let him walk away after everything she had gone through to find him. "Don't you even want to know why I came?"

"No." He didn't even bother to turn back to voice the rejection.

However, Amarah would not be dissuaded so easily. "I needed to ask you about Sansa."

She had fully expected him to keep walking, stubbornly ignoring her attempts to engage him in conversation, but he surprised her by turning back to study her curiously in the dim light. When he said nothing else, she bolstered her courage enough to ask him the question that weighed heavily on her mind.

"There were tales of you traveling with a young girl throughout the Riverlands. I had hoped you could tell me something of her fate." Her voice trembled just the slightest bit, due to grief or despondency at her continued failure she didn't quite know. "I have to find her. I didn't know who else to turn to for help."

"You've somehow managed to lose her?" his voice reached her through the darkness.

Amarah's heart sank at his ignorance of Sansa's disappearance. Burying the feeling of defeat, she answered him. "Joffrey was killed on the eve of his marriage to Margaery Tyrell. Sansa was partially blamed for his death, but she disappeared from the Capital before she could be found for questioning. We've not heard word of her since. I had hoped…" but she trailed off listlessly then, too disgusted with the unfortunate turn of events to continue. It had all been for nothing then, this search for Clegane. She was as hopelessly lost as ever before.

"You've no need to worry I'll bother you again," she informed him quietly before moving away to return to the sept.

"It was Arya Stark."

Amarah pivoted back to face him with a swiftness that left her a bit dizzy. "What did you say?"

"Does that cleverness of yours not extend to your hearing?" he grumbled before repeating his words as she had asked. "The little bird's sister was my traveling companion you caught word of. I came across her after escaping the Brotherhood. I had hoped to ransom her to the wolf king, but the massacre at the Twins happened before I could collect. We traveled a bit more after that, but she eventually managed her escape when I was wounded at the Crossroads. She left me with this limp and my festering wounds where the Elder Brother found me. I know nothing of her whereabouts after we parted. When the brother found me, I wanted to die. Better to be dead than go back to what I was, a slobbering hound blindly obeying the orders of a king who didn't deserve the title."

Amarah didn't know whether to be encouraged or further disheartened by his news of Arya. Deciding instead to sort out those feelings at a later time, she turned her concentration to the ferocious creature standing before her. "That's why the Elder Brother told us the Hound died that day. He knew of your wish not to return to the knighthood."

"He was a knight himself once," Sandor replied quietly.

Amarah nodded her head in understanding. Regarding the man before her, she decided to try one last tact in garnering any information she could for this quest. Understanding this would be the only time she would have the opportunity to question him, she had to make certain to make the most of the situation. "Is there nothing you can tell me of Sansa? I know you watched her most carefully at court. Were there any liaisons she formed that escaped the notice of others? Someone who could have helped orchestrate her escape?"

He was silent for so long, she almost thought he meant to ignore her questions. "There was another that watched her more carefully than I," he finally spoke. "Perhaps you would do better to address these questions to Lord Baelish."

"I can't," Amarah responded almost immediately. "He disappeared from the capital almost the same time as– "

She broke off as soon as the pieces of the puzzle she had been trying to solve for months came together to form a picture so startlingly clear, she had difficulty understanding how she could have failed to see it before.

"It would seem you have the answers you seek," Sandor's voice rumbled in the dark as he stole away quietly into the night, leaving Amarah alone with her tumultuous thoughts.

How could I have been so blind? she berated herself silently. Baelish had harbored an unsettling fascination for her cousin since the day she first stepped foot in the capital. She recalled him whispering secret, little words in Sansa's ear the day of the Hand's Tourney. How his speculative gleam would follow the young Stark girl as she made her way about the king's court.

Rumors had reached Amarah since her first years in the capital about Lord Baelish's association with the Tullys and how he harbored tender feelings for the young lady Catelyn Tully who had spurned his friendship and affection to become the lady of Winterfell and wife to Lord Eddard Stark. Had Amarah herself not mentioned how Sansa looked so much like the Catelyn of her youth? Surely someone as perceptive of Lord Baelish had not missed the resemblance as well.

"You forget your little cousins, my lady. Without me to look after their interests in the capital who would they turn to?" She recalled Baelish's words to her in Renly's camp. It should have struck her as odd then, his interest in her cousins who should mean nothing to him, but she had been too focused on other matters.

"Amarah?" She was briefly distracted from her musings by the sound of Jaime's voice. "When you said you had needs that required attending to, I hadn't thought those needs involved tending to the horses."

She gave him a puzzled glance for a moment till she realized that she was still standing by the stables where she had encountered the Hound. "I found Clegane," she hastily explained the situation to him.

Jaime's look of amusement quickly disappeared before his hand swiftly found the hilt of his sword. "Clegane is here?"

"He's gone now, but he told me all I need to know," she assured him. "It was Baelish, Jaime. That fucking pimp stole my cousin."

"I don't believe it was Baelish who did the fucking," Jaime took the time to correct her. "His whores took care that."

Amarah gave him a look that indicated she was not amused. "There's no time for your little quips right now. We must figure out where he's taken her."

"What makes you think it was Baelish who took your cousin?" Jaime ignored her orders to assess the situation properly.

He grasped her arm and pulled her deeper into the shadows as he questioned her in a low voice. Amarah's mind was so busy trying to assess where Baelish could have whisked Sansa off to that she didn't realize what Jaime was about until her back was pressed against the wall of the stable once more. Only this time, the man trapping her had much more nefarious schemes in mind than Sandor Clegane.

"Jaime," she tried to chide him as he started hiking up her skirts. "Not now, I need to– "

"So do I, Princess," he softly hushed her before accomplishing his goal of lifting her skirts up around her waist as he proceeded to swiftly unlace his breeches. She dimly realized that he was getting rather adept at using the one hand, but the thought was quickly lost when she felt him slowly begin to enter her, inch by tantalizing inch.

"Jaime," she softly hummed, her lids drooping in pleasure while he slowly rocked against her.

She felt him smile against her cheek as he continued to torture her slowly. "That's more like it, Princess. Perhaps you tell me about your discovery now. What makes you think it was Baelish who took young Sansa?"

Amarah valiantly tried to concentrate on her thoughts as he moved deeper. "He– Oh gods," she moaned as he slid fully into her enveloping warmth. "How am I supposed to tell you what I discovered while you're doing that?"

"Try," was all he said before slowly withdrawing and sinking back in, deeper than before.

Amarah hadn't known it possible to be aroused and irritated by a man in the same instant, but she did her best to impress on him her displeasure at his underhanded tactics. However, the stern look she attempted to give was quickly displaced by a moan of pleasure he managed to wring from from her by nudging a particularly sensitive place.

Giving up any attempt to stop him, Amarah tried once again to tell him of Littlefinger's involvement in Sansa's disappearance. "Baelish disappeared from the capital the same time as Sansa," she spoke, though the words came out sounding more like a breathless pant as he continued to pleasure her relentlessly. "He was always obsessed with my aunt since they were both youths. In his own twisted way, he must see Sansa as his second chance to succeed with Catelyn. No doubt, there's more to his schemes than simply seducing my cousin, but I haven't been able to think of that yet. First we have to discover where he's taken her. Do you know of any stronghold he would have access to, where he could keep her so securely hidden from those that wish to find her?"

"Maybe," Jaime's answered in a low groan, and Amarah felt her mouth lift in a smug smile at the knowledge that she was not the only one so affected by their torrid embrace. He took the chance to reward her with another slow thrust before continuing. "My father did bestow on him Harrenhal after the battle against Stannis Baratheon. It's the only stronghold he holds that I know of."

Amarah threw her head back with a gasp borne of exquisite bliss as he withdrew and slid home once more. "No," she rejected his suggestion once she had managed to momentarily regain her thoughts. "There's not enough suitable protection for him to keep her there without fear of discovery. The place is practically a ruin."

Jaime was now working on the neckline of her bodice, sliding the rough material across her sensitive breasts as he placed wet kisses along her skin. He ceased only long enough to send her an intense look that gleamed like wildfire in the light of the faraway torches that flickered briefly across his face. "He's an intelligent man. If he did take her, no doubt it was somewhere that she could not be easily recovered."

"It could be somewhere that she knew," Amarah offered. "He would have to entice her to go with him with the promise of somewhere familiar, would he not?"

"Hmmm," Jaime agreed noncommittally. It was clear that his attention was now turned fully to the place where their bodies joined most intimately. Amarah opened her mouth to bring his mind back to the problem at hand, but she found herself releasing a near scream of delight instead as he gave a particularly well placed thrust, bringing her to complete ecstasy.

He hurriedly moved his mouth to hers to absorb the sound, keeping his body tightly joined with hers as she shuddered in release. As the fog of pleasure slowly receded, she felt him take his own fulfillment as well. Though this time, he withdrew at the last moment rather than allowing himself to spill inside her.

Once they had both managed to collect themselves, Amarah turned his gaze to hers by gently cradling his precious face that lightly glistened with a thin sheen of sweat. "Why did you do that?"

Jaime placed his golden hand over her abdomen in a tender caress. "No need to risk it further."

"A child you mean?" Amarah questioned after understanding dawned. "There's little chance of that. My moon's blood passed only a few nights ago."

Jaime looked slightly relieved at her assurance, but Amarah wasn't greatly surprised by his reluctance to spawn a child with her. He didn't seem very much the paternal sort. "I don't want any more bastards," he admitted then in a half-whispered confession. "My next son will carry my name."

He gave her an assessing look at his last statement, likely waiting to see what response she would give. "Members of the king's guard are not permitted to take wives," she quietly reminded him.

"Perhaps I shall not always wear the cloak," he murmured, but he said nothing further on the subject.

Instead, he slowly lowered her skirts before restoring them both to a semi-respectable appearance. Amarah was content to leave topic unexplored. She had no wish to force him to do anything he did not truly want. If he gave her his name, she didn't want the action to stem from some sense of duty. So she was content to simply leave things as they were. For the present.

As they walked back to the sept, she turned the conversation back to what she had originally wished to discuss before Jaime had distracted her so thoroughly. "What of Baelish? He wouldn't have acted so brazenly by stealing her away unless he was thoroughly certain he couldn't be reached."

Jaime halted his steps momentarily to ponder the question. "I recall hearing that Tyrion had sent him to Lysa Arryn under the pretense that he was to secure a marriage between her son and Myrcella. I believe he was expected to employ certain persuasive tactics in order to convince her of the wisdom of the union."

"Do you think he could have persuaded her so thoroughly that she would consider making him lord of the Vale?" Amarah questioned him, hardly able to keep the excitement from her voice at the significant strides they were making in solving this mystery of the lost Stark.

"He certainly knows how to manipulate others into doing his bidding," Jaime pondered, the expression on his face a clear indication that he was beginning to see things Amarah's way. It was the only possible explanation for why Sansa would have disappeared so thoroughly for so long. "It would surprise me not at all if that's where he's taken her."

"Then we can simply retrieve her," Amarah told him, tightly gripping his arm in anticipation.

Jaime gave her a serious look then that served to bring her swiftly back to reality. "There's nothing simple about it if that is where he's taken her. The Eyrie is the most impenetrable fortress in all of Westeros. For a place to keep her securely from the grasp of others, Littlefinger certainly chose well."

Amarah's bubble of happiness was quickly burst as the realization dawned on her that it would be a near impossibility to get Sansa out of such a place. She recalled the tale of Tyrion in the sky cells and gave an involuntary shiver at the thought of what awaited them there. "How are we to reach her then?" she asked Jaime in a much less hopeful tone than mere moments ago.

The answer he gave her was hardly encouraging. "I don't know, Princess."

I know the realizations really poured in here, but really, for a character so close to the Stark family, it wasn't too much of a leap for her to figure out that Baelish is the Sansa snatcher, and I wanted to really get things moving along here. Also, for the little sexposition scene, I always imagined that after sexing up his sister in secret for almost his whole life, Jaime would be rather good at stealing opportune moments to work in the sexytimes. Thanks so much for reading. Comments are obviously always appreciated and a great motivator to my creative flow to bring y'all more of the story:)

A/N Jofrench22: Hope this chapter helped clear up some of the questions you had. Obviously, some answers are still to come. Thanks for your interest in the story!