The Calling - Chapter 5

It was the dogs that woke her, a cacophony of high-pitched yowling she knew as the sound of their excitement. She scrubbed her eyes, stretched, and blinked owlishly at the sunlight streaming through the open window. It was bright, focused, and she knew from its angle she'd slept away a goodly part of the morning. She was groggy from too much sleep, and the remnants of her dream and its aftermath poked at her painfully, like a finger to a fresh bruise.

"Sansa!"

She sat up straight at Sandor's raspy shout and kicked back the covers, her heart leaping into her throat. The dogs, feeding on the tenor of his voice, barked ever more frantically.

"Sansa," he called again, "come outside!"

She grabbed her dressing gown, belting it around her waist, and shoved the hair from her face as she hurried to the front door. Throwing it open the first thing she saw was Sandor. He stood off to her left in the middle of the yard, wearing nothing but a loose tunic and pair of rolled up breeches. He was bare-foot and holding a bucket in each hand. The dogs kept barking, loud and high, and for a blurry moment she wondered why he didn't just feed them and quiet them down, as he'd clearly been on his way to do when he'd yelled for her.

"What is it?" She had to raise her voice to be heard above the clamor.

His head whipping toward the kennels, Sandor hollered, "Shut up, you miserable whoresons!" The barking ceased immediately, save for one or two more yelps that cut through the warm air before quickly dying off. Then he twisted the other way, held her eye, and nodded his head toward the edge of the wood. She looked up and there, no more than a dozen yards away, stood her gray wolf.

He'd grown in the two months since she'd banished the pack, but she knew him right away. And shortly thereafter felt him. The sensation was like a tremor through her bones, a hollow space suddenly filled, and she dropped inelegantly onto the step and held out her hand. "Sweetling," she breathed, "come to me."

She was aware of Sandor bending to set down the buckets and reaching for the dagger at his hip, but only had eyes for her wolf. Wary but determined, tail held low and ears pitched, he began a slow lope across the yard, his head pivoting as he watched the both of them.

"Sansa -"

"Sheath your blade," she murmured. "You are in no danger. He is one of mine."

"I know that. It's not him I'm bloody worried about."

At that, she glanced away from her wolf and back to Sandor. Tracking the direction of his gaze, she blinked the last of the drowsiness from her eyes, looking more closely, and saw what he meant. There, deeper inside the tree line, barely visible behind the undergrowth of the wood, stood dozens upon dozens of wolves.

"Oh," she whispered and felt half a hundred pairs of eyes come to rest on her. And then like the rush of water off a high cliff's edge, the collective call of the wolves cascaded over her, through her, and she went limp as a rag doll where she sat, rocked by its magnitude.

Come with us! Run with us! they cried, their song sweeter and more compelling than any she had ever heard. It was as if the very gods had lifted their voices in a hymn meant for her ears alone. And woven through it all, quieter but no less persuasive, in perfect harmony, came another voice: They await you, sister. They call you home.

Eyes tightly shut, her mind pulled from memory a face almost forgotten. It was that of a boy with tousled auburn hair and wearing his lady mother's eyes. No, she thought, it is not possible. That boy was long in his grave, wasn't he? But she found herself asking anyway, silently calling out to him in question.

Bran, is that you?

As swiftly as it had come, her brother's face faded from her mind's eye and all went still within. She raised her head, shivering from the aftereffects of the vision and the pull of the calling. Forcing her eyes open, she watched as first one and then another and another of the wolves turned back the way they'd come, until all had disappeared into the deep green of the wood.

Several moments passed without a sound and then the soft whine of her lone wolf drew her eye. He sat on his haunches before Sandor, head tipped back, imploring eyes trained on him. Sandor was returning the scrutiny with practiced indifference, though his posture was rigid, his back straight as an arrow. As Sansa watched, the gray whimpered again and butted his nose against Sandor's empty hand. There was a moment's hesitation before he reached and tentatively scratched between the creature's ears. With a muffled, satisfied groan, the wolf dropped and curled at his feet. Sandor's eyes found hers and he swallowed hard, the apple at his throat bobbing.

"The fuck is going on?" he muttered.

The wolf lifted his muzzle to peer curiously up at the man towering over him and then lowered it back to rest on his forelegs. Sansa had a moment of absolute clarity and understood the way of it as surely as if it were a map laid out in front of her.

"It's all right," she told Sandor. "He is here for you. You've been chosen."

…

"I am not like you," he argued later that day. "I do not have your gift."

"It doesn't matter if you do or not. It is as I told you before: they found me in the Vale, they came to me. And they brought me to you. We are both of the pack now."

"I'm a dog, not a bloody wolf."

"We are not so different," she pointed out, pulling a bunch of carrots from the ground and shaking the dirt from them before laying them in a wicker basket. She looked him a question as he squatted close by, mercilessly yanking up weeds.

"Pull more. Another dozen or so," he instructed. Frowning, for she did not particularly like carrots, she did as he said and then crab-walked further down the row to where the summer squashes grew in their mounds of earth, their leaves and vines prickly against her hands as she reached for them.

"These too?"

"No, they'll go soft too quickly. Leave them." Sandor groaned as he stood, his knees popping loudly in the stillness of the late afternoon. He grimaced down at her and then looked to the edge of the garden where the gray lay observing them.

"What am I to do with him?" he asked.

"What you do best: take care of him, watch over him. He will do the same for you, if you'll allow. And treat him kindly."

"I don't mistreat my animals, you know that."

She gave him a faint smile. "I do." He seemed not to have noticed he'd spoken of the wolf as if it were already a part of his brood. The bond had been quick in forming and, though still in infancy, had proven tenacious. Even the hounds had settled, despite the fact that the gray trailed along beside their master the whole time he'd fed them, determined to remain there regardless of the muttered curses and half-hearted, side-legged kicks Sandor had doled out in his direction.

They know the gray is a part of him, she thought. Already, they know this. Sansa moved further down the row and began pulling small white radishes without bothering to ask. They would go well in a salad of greens tonight, alongside the pheasants Sandor's arrows had earlier plucked from the meadow.

"Seven hells."

He was standing in the middle of the garden, hands on his hips and gazing down and around, a look of discontent on his face. "I should have planted more potatoes. There would have been enough to send some with you if I had. I'm sorry."

She blinked, staring up at him in shock. He was distracted by his own thoughts and it was several seconds before he caught her look. "What? Why are you gaping at me like a bloody halfwit?"

The absurdity of it struck her hard, and then came the poignancy straight on its heels. She did not know whether to laugh or cry. "In all the time I have know you, I have never heard you speak those words," she told him. "And of all that you've done, Sandor, you choose not being able to see me off with potatoes as the thing you'll apologize for?"

He stared at her blankly and then his upper lip curled in a sneer. "That's not true."

"It is," she insisted. "Never once."

He gave her his stiff attention for a few seconds more and then glanced away. "Bugger this. I have to see to the wagon. Pick whatever you'd like, little bird, long as it don't go to waste." He turned on his heel and stalked toward the stable. She thought to call him back but didn't, instead settling on her heels, a hand lifting to cover her heart. But her protective gesture was for naught and the pang of sadness bit deeply.

There had been no discussion of the immediate future and what it held, but they both knew what the appearance of the wolves meant. Once the enormous pack had left and they'd gathered their wits, Sandor had headed to the kennels to complete his interrupted chore, Sansa trailing several paces behind, watching him and waiting for a conversation that never came. Once that was done, he'd disappeared into the cottage, reappeared with bow and quiver, and taken off for the meadow, the gray at his side. She'd been gathering her few possessions when he'd returned with their supper, and he'd bid her follow him outside.

"You'll need provisions for the road," he'd said. "Best take as much from the garden as you can." And that had been that. They both knew she was leaving and she supposed nothing they could say would dull the pain of their parting or make it any easier. Even the reappearance of the gray and what it implied - a tenuous connection to Sandor that might remain with her so long as the wolf lived – was small comfort compared to what she would be giving up.

Sansa had grown to love him beyond measure. The thought of leaving Sandor, of abandoning the life she had carved out with him, was infinitely painful and tugged at her heart, begging for reconsideration. But an even larger concern called to her, a sense of duty and longing both, a need to finish a journey that had begun the day the wolves had first appeared to her. Though she wanted more than anything to stay, she could not afford to be selfish in this matter, not so long as the words of House Stark and House Tully lived on in her, running like blood through her veins. And not so long as the song of her wolves echoed in her ears, with its irresistible siren call.

Sansa had learned years ago to muffle the wanting of those things she could not have, the stuff of her dreams. Yet as she sat in the dirt, muted sunlight warming her face, a small flame of resentment flickered to life. Why can't I have it all? Haven't I sacrificed enough? And she questioned what satisfaction she could find in rebuilding her homeland if it meant an empty heart and a lonely bed at day's end. It didn't seem fair that the cost of honor and duty should be so high. But there was nothing to be done for it. Sighing deeply, she levered to her feet and made her way back to the cottage to start their supper.

…

"You'll want to head northeast. Keep the sun at your back. You'll come across the kingsroad soon enough. I expect you'll find your way from there."

She looked up from the tunic she was mending. Sandor was sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the hearth, running the blade of his dagger slowly across a whetstone, head bent to his task. He hadn't bothered to look up as he spoke and his profile was a dark silhouette against the dancing flames of the fire. It was the most he'd said to her since she'd called him in to eat.

The gray had presented a problem then, wanting to follow him inside. But Sandor allowed no animals in the cottage and the wolf was no different to him than one of his dogs. Presented with a firmly shut door between himself and his master, the gray had taken to scratching at it and voicing his dissatisfaction with occasional high short yelps. She'd picked at her food, keenly aware of Sandor's growing anger, jerking in her seat as he'd abruptly shoved away his plate and made for the door. She wasn't sure what he planned to do and braced herself for any outcome. But all he'd done was open it just far enough to slip through, closing it behind him. She heard the rough tone of his voice but not his words. He'd come back in a few minutes later and settled across from her as taciturn as before. But there had been no more disturbance from outside and their meal was finished in nearly complete silence.

"Thank you," she told him now. "But I don't … I am not altogether certain where I'll be going from here."

This time he did glance her way, his brow wrinkled in a frown. "What's this you're chirping? Have I missed something? It's Winterfell you're making for." Studying her expression he added, "Isn't it?"

"I don't know. I suppose I'll end up there eventually. But I must go where the wolves lead me. It is not my choice." He stared at her, long and hard, and she felt the air around them shift in some elemental way, as if a swift and thundering storm had barreled across the sky and come to a halt above their heads.

"Of course it's your choice!" he suddenly bellowed. "It's always been your bloody choice! To stay … to leave."

"There's no need to raise your voice."

"I am not raising my voice!" Faster than she'd thought possible, he was off the floor and on his feet, the dagger buried deep in the wood of the mantle. She flinched as he rounded on her. "Why did the wolves lead you here?"

"I don't know."

"You're lying. Tell me the truth!" He reached the table and leaned across it, arms locked straight on either side of her, his hands flat and splayed wide. "Why did they bring you here?" His eyes sparked dark and terrible, and in them she saw the specter of the man she'd known in King's Landing.

"I don't know! Sandor, please." Though not entirely unexpected in light of the day's events, his outburst was still surprising in its ferocity. She found herself - not for the first time - more frightened for him than of him. Just then, from right outside the door, the gray gave a long, mournful howl. They both turned at the sound and it was enough to break the disquieting tension that had permeated the room, suffocating in its intensity, as if it meant to steal the very air from her lungs. His eyes flicked back to hers and he spun and went to pull the dagger free, yanking at it to work it loose, tiny splinters of wood falling unnoticed at his feet. His back was to her but she had no trouble hearing his harsh murmur.

"You should never have come here. I didn't ask for this, never wanted it. You should have stayed away."

"You don't mean that."

"I do!" He turned back to her, the blade held loosely in his fist. "You come barging uninvited into my home, into my life. You turn everything all sideways and crooked, you and your damnable wolves; spin my head 'round till I don't know up from down anymore." Sansa set her sewing aside and pushed back her chair, rising and coming around the table. She approached him as she would a wounded animal, cautiously, watchfully, all the time reaching out for him from within. Any residual trepidation she might have felt swiftly faded, replaced by the recognition of his pain, the source of his anger. Sandor watched her approach with defiant, glistening eyes. "What in seven hells am I to do, girl? Don't know how to find my way back to where I was. It has all been changed, every buggering scrap of it." She was close enough to touch him now and went to lay her hand on his arm, but he pulled away before she could.

"Don't."

She closed her hand in the space between them and gave voice to her greatest hope, regardless of the fact she knew it to be in vain. "It is not too late. You can still-"

"Enough," he growled. "Keep those words in your mouth, little bird, for both our sakes. Do not ask me to go and I'll not ask you to stay. Neither of us wants to hear the answer we'd get." She chanced it and reached again, curling her fingers around his free hand, and this time he didn't shy away. Instead his eyes slipped shut and, almost reflexively, his fingers closed around hers. "I knew this day would come. I thought … I thought myself prepared." His eyes came open and he peered down at her. And then he gave an almost imperceptible nod, as if to himself, and leaned to set the dagger on the mantle. Then he pulled loose of her grasp and cupped her shoulders. "Do you understand, now, why I'm not meant to have beautiful things?"

She shook her head, at a loss to even begin to comprehend his question, let alone the turbulent emotions she felt in him. In that moment, he was a storm made flesh.

"I break them, little bird." He went on, managing an eerie calm despite his turmoil. "Go now, while there's still time. Go, before I've broken you as well."

"I am not afraid of you. And I am not so fragile as you think." His hands fell away and she instinctively raised hers and palmed his ruined cheek. "Do you know there are stories of old that claim wolves will mate for life, and that neither time nor distance can break that bond? I am yours, now and always. Look within, Sandor, when I am gone from this place. Be still and listen." Her hand slid down to cover his heart. "You will yet hear my call, I promise you."

…

Later that night he reached for her, as he was wont to do of an evening, and pulled her back to lean against his chest. He wrapped her close, setting his cheek upon her hair. Sansa laid her comb down on the cabinet and turned in his arms. As his mouth settled softly against her neck, she slid her arms as far around him as they would go, her body molding to his. There remained a skittish tension between them, but it lasted only scant moments more. And in its place came the sense of comfort they'd begun to rely on, the peace they found in their intimacy. His hands started to skim lightly over her wherever they could reach - a whisper's touch and barely felt. She pushed even closer and held him tighter, wanting more, needing more. But he remained strangely distant, his caresses measured, the touch of his lips on her skin fleeting and almost chaste. And though she felt him harden against her belly, the fire that had always burned brightly between them was dampened and meager in its heat.

Go, before I've broken you as well.

She knew, then, and pulled away from him, leaning back in his arms and peering up at him with stubborn intent. "I will not have this," she told him, "not this night and not from you. I cannot abide your gentle touch." She curved her hands around his neck and linked them in the warm space at the nape. "I am a Stark and not easily broken. If you would take me one last time, then do it as the man you are, not the one you think you should be."

Something untamed flickered behind his eyes, transitory and utterly compelling. And he pulled at her at the same time she raised up on her toes. Their mouths came together hard, clumsily and painful. Lower lip stinging, she hissed against his mouth but did not pull away, and moaned low in her throat as his tongue brushed against hers, warm and wet. They had each other by the neck at first , holding tightly so there was no escape, and then fell into each other as the kiss deepened, turning and twisting, scrambling to grasp wherever their hands found purchase. Sansa backed him into the table and he collided with it hard enough to knock over the wine left from their supper. The stink of sour red filled the air as the dregs flowed from the flagon and onto the floor. Panting, they broke away and Sansa tasted the coppery tang of blood on her tongue. His or hers, she could not say. Both, she dazedly decided as she gazed up at him. Just as it should be. Craving more, she leaned up and licked away the crimson smear at the corner of his mouth.

She could not say exactly what happened then. But whatever remained rational within them fled in the face of the visceral urges that drove them now. Somehow they made it into the small sleeping room and almost to the bed, clothing pulled off or torn away as they went, leaving a trail of muted greens and browns and softest silks. She found herself first on her back atop the low chest at the end of the bed, as he dropped to his knees and wrenched her thighs wide. Without warning he thrust the full length of his cock into her, dipping his head to swallow her startled yelp. But the chest proved too low and too short and he soon had them on the floor. Dry rushes crackled under the weight of her knees as she straddled him, poking sharply into them both as she ground against him, riding him with mindless ferocity. There was no place mouths collided with skin that remained unmarked by the pressure of their teeth. His fingers dug deep into her hips and as he reared up beneath her she scrabbled at his back with sharp nails. He shoved her away, snarling, and took to his feet, yanking her up and tossing her onto the bed as if she weighed less than nothing. She bounced and landed on elbows and knees. And when she went to turn, Sandor was there behind her and held her at the edge, wrapping an arm around her waist and lifting her hips to meet his. Bracing a knee on the mattress, he drove into her without warning and her chin dropped to her forearms, her back curving in a deep bow as her body welcomed his fresh assault.

He had never taken her this way before, from behind; rutting as if they were the same as the animals she had witnessed mating in the stables and yards of Winterfell, the same as the pack she traveled with and was a part of. Even as his forceful thrusts pushed her toward the thin edge of pain, she found herself pushing back, matching him stroke for stroke, keening high in her throat. He grunted behind her, their hips slapping together wetly, and reached to fist a hand in her hair, tugging her up to sag against his chest. His teeth found her neck as he wrapped his arms around her, one low at her waist and the other across her breasts, pinning her to him as his hips stuttered and ground against hers. She was filled with him, surrounded by him, and still it was not enough. Still, she needed more. Cries turned to growls in her mouth and pushed past her lips, the sounds filling the cramped and humid room with words senseless and yearning.

Stars exploded behind her eyes as his fingers slid from her waist to probe between her legs, just above where they were joined. He released his hold then, and she folded over his arm and down onto the bed as he worked his fingers in small, hard circles against her, relentlessly driving into her the whole time. And soon the world collapsed upon itself, blocking out everything else, narrowing her focus until nothing existed but the pulsing at her core and the sparking of her nerves, every inch of her skin inflamed with it. She was pushed deeper into the mattress by his weight as he draped himself over her and burrowed his face between her neck and shoulder.

"Now you are truly mine," he rasped hotly in her ear. "You will always be mine." He gave a short, shallow thrust of his hips and then another, and then sunk deep inside her as he spilled his seed. There were brief moments of awareness as he shifted and swiped away the hair plastered to her cheek, laying a single soft kiss there. And then she rolled into his waiting arms and surrendered to the welcoming darkness.

…

It was gentle, calloused fingers sweeping across her brow that wakened her. She forced open gummy eyes in the half-light of dawn to find a fully dressed Sandor perched on the edge of the bed. "Best be up, little bird. They're waiting for you."

It took long seconds for his words to filter through the miasma in her head. Longer still for her to realize she wasn't seeing things, that the gray was in fact in the room and right next to Sandor, panting softly, his bushy tail swishing to and fro as he observed her with bright, eager eyes. She sat up too quickly and groaned, forcing herself not to fall back onto the mattress as she discovered varying degrees of pain in places she hadn't known could hurt. Glancing coyly at Sandor, she caught the edge of a wry, secret smile.

"Be careful what you ask for," he said. "Though I'll admit you gave as good as you got: I've my own battle scars this morning." He pushed up from the bed, turning away from her. "I'll be outside when you're ready." He took his leave, his wolf trailing behind him.

She slowly crawled out of bed and padded to the corner of the room, where she emptied her bladder in the chamber pot behind the screen and then hobbled her way to the basin of water waiting on the bureau. Naked as her name day, goose bumps raised up hard on her skin, she squinted out the window and looked upon the morning.

It was a magical sight. A dense, heavy fog lay over the land and she could barely see past the side yard. The trees of the wood loomed ghostly and tall just at the edge of her vision and she could scarcely make out the sharp lines of the shed. Everything was draped in dew and the air wet and still. It was eerily quiet; whatever sounds there were to be heard muffled by the vaporous mist that hung in the air. As she watched, a whippoorwill landed on the hitching post, its muted colors blending so perfectly with the battered old wood she might not have seen it otherwise. It chirped high and long and then shot from the post and into the trees. Sansa sketched a muted smile and turned from the window and to her simple bath.

She took her time, cataloguing as best she could the marks Sandor had tattooed upon her skin. She lifted her looking glass and fingered the tiny impressions of his teeth at her shoulder, neck, and collarbone; the splotches of blood raised in vivid purplish-red bruises where he'd suckled at the most tender parts of her: the soft curve of a breast, the inner fold of her arm, the swell of her stomach. Glancing down as she washed, she noticed a large oval imprint staining the skin on the edge of her hipbone. She poked it at and then awkwardly twisted, raising her arm and trying to look far enough around to know for certain. It was her fingers exploring there that solidified her suspicions. Even unable to see them, she was certain there were four corresponding bruises near the small of her back and along her spine, marking where his hand had gripped her so tightly. A fresh wave of arousal surged through her and she tamped it down, sighing and finishing her bath. She was soon dressed in the plainest of her gowns, cloak draped over her shoulders and pinned with a brooch. She stood in the center of the room and slowly turned, giving it a last look to make sure she hadn't forgotten any of her things. The silver brush, comb, and mirror were the last items placed in her sack and she paused for a moment before digging through it and pulling out a hair ribbon she'd made from the length of lilac silk Sandor had given her. Threading it through her fingers, she placed a kiss at the middle and tied it to the bedpost on the side where he slept. Blinking back tears, Sansa gathered her things and left the cottage behind.

He and the gray were waiting for her by the wagon, the tan palfrey hitched to it. The horse's ears were twitching impatiently and he was throwing wide-eyed, mistrustful looks at the wolf. Sandor took the satchel from her and tossed it in the back.

"If you can, try to keep the pack a good distance away until the old boy grows used to them. He tolerates the dogs - your wolves shouldn't be much different." He looked toward the wood as he absently stroked the horse's flank. "They're out there, not far past the tree line."

A thought suddenly occurred to her. "You'll have no horse or wagon now."

"I'll make do. There's more where they came from." He turned to her. "You should have everything you'll need to get you by for a fair time. There's a bag on the bench: bread and cheese to break your fast. And plenty of water in the back too. If you can't find any fresh, boil it first before you drink it, else you'll be bloody squatting in ditches from here until you get to … wherever it is you're going." She nodded her understanding. "There's a dagger there too, under the bench. Keep it close at hand."

"The wolves," she began.

"Do it anyway. You don't know what's like to happen out there." He gave her a long look, a weary sadness worn faintly on his features. And then he opened his arms. "Come here, then."

They held one another as the horse whickered and the gray whined, nudging against them. And then from the wood came the call of her wolves, faintly at first, before building to a more urgent cry, their howls echoing strangely in the mist. Sandor pulled back and cupped her face, leaning in to kiss her. Resting his forehead against hers, he murmured, "If you should ever pass this way again …"

Stretching up, Sansa placed kisses on his eyelids and then his mouth, lingering there, determined to remember the taste of him. Silently they broke apart and he handed her up into the wagon. He gave her the reins and stepped back.

"Be well, little bird."

"And you, Sandor."

She took a deep breath and clucked her tongue at the palfrey. He started them on their way, the wagon wheels creaking in noisy protest. She steered them toward the trail that wound around the edge of the wood and then twisted on the bench to look back. Sandor remained where she had left him, the gray at his side, his hand resting between the wolf's ears. And though tears blurred her vision and her neck ached at the angle, she did not look away until he had vanished into the fog.

…