Apologies that it took me so long to get this chapter out. My muse would spark one day and fizzle out in an hour so it was a rocky process for this chapter. I hope you like it!
Chapter Eighteen: A Flame in the Ocean
Robb liked being fawned over, I quickly found out.
"Are we going to move from this spot at any time, your grace?" I hissed into Robb's ear as one of his hands traveled dangerously low on my hips. The first thing that he had asked when we had exited the room was where the nearest balcony was. And then he had proceeded to drag me toward the opposite end of the castle while I had had to cuddle up to him. All the while, this smug expression had been plastered onto his face, his eyes glittering with enjoyment.
"I was merely trying to sell the act," he murmured, turning his body so that I was blocked in against the balcony railing, the night frigid and endless in the distance.
A shuffle of furs and metal drew my eyes to the little bit of the entrance that I could see around Robb's shoulders. The Vale guards had led us all around the castle, standing quietly but with expressions that suggested that they were babysitting toddlers instead of entertaining the King of the North.
Although my constant tittering surely wasn't helping that image. To sell the act, I clung onto Robb, commenting on random things like the ridiculous chandelier in the corridor or the "pretty" weapons that hung around a room that was surely used for strategic planning in war times.
"I'm sure that we can sell this in a different manner, Robb," I whispered sarcastically, resisting the fluttering of my heart as Robb frowned slightly, his gaze flicking back to the guards quietly waiting for us by the entrance. He shifted a bit closer to me, the hard leather of his outfit pressing into my front as he completely eclipsed my vision.
He was ruggedly handsome against the snowy mountains, his curls chaotic in the bitter wind with downy lashes that made his crystal eyes seem bright and alive. Something had lit in him since he had found his sister, some of that rubble that made us his frowns and silences seem softer. A man like this could take a woman's heart with a glance alone.
His lips tipped up, full and inviting as his teeth flashed. "I'm just as sure that the other ways that you speak of aren't as enjoyable."
Without thinking, I reached for him, running a hand over the sharp lines of his cheekbone, down to the slight beard that tickled his jaw. My body ached for him, I realized breathlessly as his eyes swirled with darkness, his head tipping closer.
My interest in men didn't go very far. In the past, I had been able to dissuade myself before my emotions piled on like this. But… Robb was different. He made me think stupid thoughts. He reduced me to a base urge that was almost terrifying. I wanted him. I wanted him in a primal, animalistic way that made me shiver and burn so hotly that I thought I might one day catch fire without realizing.
Robb's eyes had gone a stormy grey, his lids drooping as he stared intently down at me. Something in him seemed to coil tighter his body curling around me until I couldn't feel the wind anymore just the raw heat of him. He wanted me to kiss him, I realized. He wasn't going to move until...
Thoughtlessly, I tipped forward, going up on my toes so that I could press my lips to his. His mouth was on mine and I couldn't think, I couldn't even breath. Something bright and hot burned inside of me. He shuddered, a noise of pain and hunger ripping from him, rumbling through me. My skin tingled as he deepened the kiss, my back hitting up against the balcony as he crowded me back, one of his hands coming to grasp my curls as the other slid over my waist, hauling me closer.
If I was thinking before, it all stopped in the moment that he let out an agonized murmur against my lips, his teeth nipping at my lower lip. I pushed back against him, clawing at his shoulders, my other hand curling into the soft mess of curls at his nape. I wanted him to never leave me. I wanted him to stay against my lips until the world fell apart. I wanted… I wanted so much that I let out a soft yell, nearly sobbing as he ate that sound from me, his tongue meeting mine.
"Gods, you could destroy any man," he said gruffly against my lips and I was utterly intoxicated. Moaning, I tugged him closer, stretching so that I could just kiss him once more. All I needed was one more kiss and I would be able to walk away from this man. His lips met mine softly, one rough hand cupping my cheek until he was all around me and when I opened my eyes, our mouths still grazing each other, there was only the icy storm of his eyes.
"I - I'm s-sorry," I blurted out, trembling in his grip, unable to tell if it was because of the foul winds blowing across the balcony or the kiss that was still warming me. His hair was mussed, a tangled mess from where my fingers had dove into them. I had yanked him to me - I looked away, embarrassment beating through me. Like a harlot. I had jumped on him like some kind of wanton whore. It was embarrassing. Worse, it was terrifying, having this man control me like this.
"Willa," Robb whispered, tilting my chin up, his gaze wide and earnest. "What are you apologizing for?"
My mind scrambled. Jumping on you? Showing you how much you enchant me? Letting you see the power that you have over me?
Instead what came out of my mind was raw and stung my throat as it came out. "Getting carried away. I shouldn't have let things go so far when it's only a game."
I bit down on my tongue, staring off at the whirling snow and hard rocks of the mountain. Slowly, his fingers slid away from my face, that hard expression taking place as his jaw tightened.
"Why do you always lie?" The words were spoken so softly that I almost missed them. I whipped around, staring up at Robb's sober expression. His eyes searched mine. "I see it in your eyes. Or the way that you hesitate for a second before you speak them. Or the way that you seem so surprised when they come out of your pretty, little mouth."
I shivered as his eyes rolled with anger. "I don't know what you mean."
His lips tipped up but there wasn't any humor in his eyes. "There it is again. A lie." Robb's fingers ran softly over my lips, his thumb rubbing along my lower lip for a moment like he could erase it from existence with his touch alone. "You've lied to me since the first time we met. Even then I knew but I thought that maybe if we…"
He shook his head, his brows furrowing in an expression of frustration. I didn't know what to say. A million things were stuck in my throat - how I never meant to lie to him, how I was only keeping a secret so that he wouldn't be driven away, how I told lies to keep us both safe from whatever was growing between us. Instead, I stood there mutely while he back away, running a frustrated hand through his hair before turning away.
"Come," he muttered, turning. "Meet my sister."
The wind was harsh without him near, I realized, shivering.
The room that Sansa Stark was staying in was just a corridor away from ours. A fact that I quickly found that Robb knew since he led the way to her room.
Her doors weren't guarded by anyone which I found extremely disturbing for a possible ruler of the North if her brothers were all unable to.
"Honey," I called sweetly, smiling flirtatiously up at Robb as he turned with a quirked brow. Robb still wasn't completely through with our earlier argument but he would never ignore me - a fact that made it extremely hard to grow irritated with him. I tugged him down by the collar, giggling.
"Oh, by the Seven," one of the guards grumbled, stalling out a few feet from us.
"They go at it like two bunnies in a sack," his companion grunted as Robb's arm curled around my waist, drawing me flush to him. His head tipped closer to mine.
"Your sister…" I started, unsure of how to proceed. I glanced away from his penetrating gaze. "Do you trust her?"
I could feel the resulting shock jerk through his body. "What does that mean?"
My teeth sunk into my bottom lip. "Littlefinger shouldn't be underestimated-"
"Up to this point, I haven't underestimated any of my enemies," he bit out and I snapped around to glare up at him. His lips cocked in a smug smile. "Or did my military feats not reach your ears in that tower of yours." My fingers curled into fists in his collar, a low snarl working it's way up my throat. Robb's eyes crinkled at the noise, leaning a bit closer to whisper in my ear. "Remember that we have a rapt audience, darling."
Damn him. I forced out a choked laugh, refocusing on the main issue and not my sudden urge to strangle him. "She's been with him for a long while now - are you sure that you want to trust her with all of our secrets so soon?"
He pulled back, his blue eyes blinking down at me slowly for a minute. "You want my sister… to think… that I married a twittering imbecile?"
I gritted out a smile. "Not the words that I would use - but yes."
His brows furrowed. "You don't trust her?"
I blushed. "I don't know her."
"So you don't trust me?"
"What?" I stuttered, taken aback.
He glared down at me. "If you don't trust her then you're leaning on me for a statement of her character. And since my statement is that she is my sister and she would not be corrupted then the only answer is that you don't trust my word." His brows furrowed even more. "Correct?"
Heat seared my cheeks as I fumbled over words. He made a very good point. "I - I'm just trying to protect us."
His eyes swirled angrily. "This is my sister."
He was starting to really get me angry. If he would just think for one moment. There was too much at risk - too much that we could lose if we trusted the wrong person. Not only our positions but our heads. "Blood means nothing," I hissed up at him.
His eyes snapped. "Maybe in your family, Willa but in the North blood is the only thing that we have." Robb let go of me abruptly, pushing me away as he swept toward the tightly sealed doubled doors.
I stared at the flickering lanterns embedded into the stone walls of the Vale. Well, I guess that conversation was over. I turned, forcing a light smile to the guards as I swept in after him. My mind spun. Would I continue this farce against his will or cave beneath him blind trust? My stomach turned.
Slowly, I made my way into Sansa Stark's room, a woman who had been turned around King's Landing like a tournament trophy. My knowledge of her endeavors was short but horrid in it's simplicity. She had come to King's Landing in hopes of marriage to King Joffrey - an endeavor that had ended with the decapitation of Sansa's father and the beginning of a war that would send her family to the farthest depths of Westeros. Robb had struggled to the South in a desperate hope to see her again.
Her time in King's Landing was struck through with only a few newsworthy moments that had reached the Twin's by raven. A promise to Joffrey that had ended with the appearance of Margarey Tyrell. The quick secure of her loyalty with marriage to Tywin Lannister. And then the evaporation of that at her disappearance and the end of the war. Then there was nothing but the Vale for months.
"My beautiful, beautiful girl," Catelyn was whispering, a thin comb running through the long strands of her daughter's hair as they sat in front of the fire.
A heart shaped face turned, the firelight making her hair burn as it warmed her clear, porcelain skin. She was beautiful. So beautiful that it almost hurt to look at it. Robb's face was one of painful vulnerability as he rushed to her.
"Sister," he breathed as if this were the first moment of the reunion again. I drifted by the door, feeling awkward and out of place in the intimate moment.
"Oh, you look exactly as I remembered you," Sansa whispered, clutching at him as he picked her up and swirled with her in his arms. She pulled back, touching at the stubble on his jaw. "You need to shave."
"Ah, you know how the women love this look," he grunted, setting her down with a playful smile.
Her brow quirked in a way that made me sick. It looked too much like the way that Robb looked when he was being playful. "From what I've heard, you are only out to please one woman these days."
His smile was blinding as he turned to me, his eyes glittering as he extended a hand. He was so vulnerable. Crippling fear made it hard for me to breath as I drifted unsteadily forward. Anyone could tear him open and feast on him when he was like this. Panic made my mind go blank.
"HELLO!" I squealed out, giggling as I pranced forward, bypassing his hand to curl around his bicep. His eyes shuttered, his smile freezing. "My! I've heard so much about you but no one told me how pretty you were."
Sansa's smile grew stiff as she stared at me, clutching at her brother like an animal to a tree branch. From her seat at the fire, Catelyn's face had closed off, her lips pinching together. There was no way to explain away the simpering titter of my voice. No way that he could misinterpret my clinging. And in a way, it was a betrayal. But in another, it was the only way that I could protect him.
"Oh…" Sansa murmured, her gaze flicking uncertainly to her brother before she forced out an even brighter smile. "It's lovely to make your acquaintance, Lady Willa."
"Please!" I said, avoiding the hot gaze that Robb was sending me. "Call me your Grace!" I snorted, my mind reeling at the awfulness of the role that I had chosen. "That was a jest! Willa will do just fine."
Catelyn's smile had become almost painful, her eyes swirling with an emotion that I wasn't completely sure of. And I felt ashamed. Ashamed that I couldn't trust as my husband did. And ashamed that I cared when so much was at stake. I could feel it gathering up inside of me, pooling in the space between my lunges.
"I…" Sansa's face was tight, her words just as corded. "I am glad to meet you. The kingdom is very vocal about your match with my brother."
Without meaning to, I flinched. I could only imagine the things that the people of Westeros were saying. Something along the lines of my ineptitude and bad breeding with a mix of sympathy for Robb. Our match would be considered a weak one and I could only imagine the amount of attention that he would get from females when we finally arrived at Winterfell. My arms tightened around his.
"Vocal, yes…" I simpered, glancing up to meet Robb's stony gaze. Yes. He was very, very mad. And I wasn't sure I could blame him. Nervously, I patted his arm. He could either continue to play along or completely ignore my wishes. His eyes darkened.
"My wife doesn't like frivolous things like politics and strategic talk," he finally said, dryly, his gaze unhappy as he turned back to his sister. "She's happier in the company of-"
"Dresses!" I jumped in, giving an animated twirl. "Don't you love the color? I paired it with the leather and furs because that seemed to be the fashion of Winterfell. Don't you think it's splendid?"
It was an ordinary traveling gown and it was covered in dirt and horsehair from the journey here. It smelled absolutely atrocious and it looked about ten times worse. Lord, I was an absolute twit.
"Very," Sansa murmured, her eyes flicking almost sympathetically towards Robb - half call for help and half pity. Good. She hated me. She blinked a few quick flutters, swallowing before turning to her brother, completely shutting my side of the conversation down. "Have you been to Winterfell?"
"Not since the final battle," he murmured, his eyes swirling with a rigid sort of concentration. "Bran has written with the details of Winterfell's destruction."
"Bran," Sansa breathed, her eyes clouding with tears. "I had heard that he had been killed."
Robb's smile was gentle. "No. A few squabbles reached Winterfell and forced him out but our ally, Greatjon was able to find him and safely return Rickon and him home."
"That's wonderful," Sansa whispered, her words hitching as a few tears escaped. She shook her head. "I didn't think I would ever see you again."
Robb's smile grew stiff as he glanced to me. I had wandered a bit away, tinkering with shiny objects around the room. Beside the fire, Catelyn had kept a watchful eye on my progress. Now her head tipped towards her children.
"Sweetheart." Her eyes flicked uncertainly to Robb before she continued. "Bran isn't the same as before…"
Sansa's face went a lighter shade of grey, her mouth pinching. "I… I know that - none of us are the same… but he's alive."
"Yes," Robb whispered. "We just wanted to prepare you…" Silence, heavy and dark followed that all three Starks glancing to a different part of the room. Robb's blue eyes met mine, the pain there making me gulp back a breath, my chest tightening. How bad could Bran be to make them like this?
"My sister and Petyr?" Catelyn suddenly blurted, her face twisting into an expression of quiet pain. I turned away, fiddling with a set of earrings on Sansa's vanity.
"I can hear them through the walls at night," Sansa said blandly, looking highly unamused by the thought. I blushed. Were the walls really that thin? Lysa was a turn away down the hall. I blanched, thinking of my silly declaration to the attendant. Stupid, stupid girl. Robb looks less than enthused by the idea as well, his lips tipping down.
"Oh," Catelyn murmurs, her gaze turning back to the hearth. "Petyr has always been an ally to the Starks-"
"To you, mother," Robb cuts in with an eye roll. "He has pledged allegiance to you and only you, cutting down those around you so that he has a better view."
"In his youth, maybe," she gritted out, obviously irritated by Robb's statement. "Now he is pledged to my sister and so all affections towards me have therefore been diverted-"
"Mother…" Sansa's eyes flicked to me quickly. "I would tread lightly around Littlefinger."
"Honestly, you and your brother - even your father," Catelyn huffed, looking heavenward. "I've known him since we were children-"
"He's told me many times," Sansa said, her cheeks redden. "He's also made it clear that he could have also been my father."
Catelyn's eyes widened, her mouth gaping open. I winced. I was all too familiar with the sordid affections of a love-besotted man. My father would always yank me to him, grasping my chin. He whispered adorations to me - how my face was just like hers, my manner, my lips. He was crazed with the very thought of her. Robb's shoulders hunched, his face shuttering in rage so quickly that I could barely process it.
"I'll rip out his throat," he growled, wheeling towards the door, his hand going to the pummel of his blade.
"Robb!" Sansa gasped.
"Robb darling!" I yelped, jumping forward to scramble into his path. I stared up at him, his hulking form fuming. I forced a smile. "It would be impolite to rip out our host's throat."
"You say that like I care," he hissed, stepping to the side to try and get around me but I quickly blocked him.
"Lysa wouldn't like it!" I bit out, trying to force some reason into him with my eyes. His returning gaze was thunderous.
"I'll apologize afterward," he snarked back.
"There are more people here than just you," I snapped, giving him a shove. I glared up at him, my bubbly exterior bursting. "How many of your men will be killed if Lysa loses her prince charming? You idiot. Think of your people for one moment."
A long pause was all I got, Robb's expression extremely grumpy. Finally, with a huff, he turned, stalking to a chair to go and sulk. Catelyn was staring at me her eyes wide. One moment passed and she coughed. Oh right.
"Besides," I giggled, twirling. "The view from the balconies is to die for! Who could leave such luxury for something so trivial?"
Sansa's eyes had narrowed on me, her mind ticking over something. I resisted the urge to grimace. I had probably messed up and good impression of me that she had.
"If she were Littlefinger's daughter than that would mean that I was his as well and I can't stomach the thought," Robb replied grimly.
I rolled my eyes. He was so dramatic.
"Lysa and Petyr whisper a lot," Sansa finally said, her eyes distant. The logs in the fireplace crackled. A week ago, there were a few wildlings that came here and left with a sack of gold. Things have been…"
My eyes narrowed on the girl, her brows furrowed. The running and export of the Vale were none of my concern. Even so, a private party with Petyr and Lysa made me uneasy. My mind worked, trying to parcel out the good information from the trash. I rubbed at my temple.
"Something isn't right here," Robb muttered suddenly, his eyes intent on the fire, the flames reflected back into his eyes so it seemed like a lit flame in the ocean. "And I'm afraid that I'll see things when it's too late."