I hate myself for posting something so short but I really wanted to get something out for you guys especially since you've all been SO AMAZING. I'm going to start typing up the next chapter tonight so hopefully I'll be able to get it out sooner.
Chapter Twenty-One: A Game of Truths
"I'll run away," I threaten, jabbing a finger at Robb as he sidles a bit closer. His hair was falling in charming curls across his forehead, his blue eyes crinkling as he held up his hands slowly in mock surrender. "One more step…"
"It - It was wrong of me to - to force myself on you like that, Willa." The words came out grating as if Robb was resisting the urge to roll his eyes as he said them. I clenched my mouth shut, the stone walls cold and sure against my back from the corner I had wiggled into like a child fleeing a spanking. "You are a lady after all and to have - to have taken advantage of you was...wrong."
Advantage? I blushed, remembering the almost blinding pleasure, the need for more. I was still aching, my body almost leaning towards him as if it knew that he could give me something that I wanted. No. Advantage didn't feel like the right word to use for what had just occurred between us. It was a calculated seige on his part. And he had definitely been successful. The bastard.
But - but things like - like what he had just done… They could make me think irrational, confusing things. "What - um, what you just did-" I fumbled, searching desperately for words and only coming up with confusion. What had just happened had felt somehow like a betrayal, like a random event that was so bizarre that it shouldn't have even been in my working mind. And now it was there forever, beating at my heart and worse, my own lust with the insistence of a beggar.
"It… it was wrong of me," Robb gritted out between clenched teeth, his eyes murderous as they roamed around the room, his jaw made of steel. "I will...work to regain your trust, Willa."
I blinked. "You won't promise to never do it again?"
He scoffed. Actually scoffed his brows going up as if I had just asked him whether he would choose to keep the title of king or just pass it on to someone on the street.
I bristled at the sound, my fingers clenching in the material of my now rumpled dress. Rumpled because my husband had decided to hike it up like a barbarian - I cut that train of thought off swiftly, blushing even as an ache started between my thighs. And you know who can make it go away, a traitorous voice whispered as Robb raked a hand through his curls, the muscles of his arms flexing.
And the fact that I was noticing these things now made me even more furious. Furious that he was making me so confused. Furious that he couldn't just keep things as they were - simple and detached. Worse was that he had ripped me down. With one simple act, he had bared me, made me feel defenseless and confused. And suddenly - suddenly I hated him for it.
Because if there was one thing that I wasn't it was weak. How dare he make me feel so bared?
"You-you-" I fumbled for words as his eyes narrowed, his hand still tucked distractingly into his hair. I fumed, my face heating and my chest aching for some stupid, ludicrous reason. I bared my teeth, feeling the rush of power answer as my emotions surged. "You savage. What gave you the right -? How dare you-?"
The idea popped into my head like a sudden swift dip in the road, nasty and venomous. "Do you want to know what I really think of you, King of the North, Destroyer of the Lannisters?"
His brows drew down angrily, his mouth curling into a smile that mocked all pretenses at humor. I had once seen a fire so blue, that it looked like a winter sky. I had thought it to be cold until my mouth yanked my fingers away just when I was about to touch it. The hottest flames burn the bluest, my darling. Do not be fooled. His eyes were no different. They scorched me to my very soul.
His voice was low and sure, quiet like an animal that was slinking a bit closer. "What do you think, Daughter of Frey? It has been my every waking thought to gleen even a sliver of yours."
The words held a heavy edge of sarcasm beneath their stillness and my nails broke through the skin of my palms at the mocking lilt. Next would come words that I didn't really mean. Words that I could never take back. Words that-
"You're a child," I spat, watching the flames roar to life in his drawn face. "You take what you want and think nothing of the consequences. Do you think I make myself act like a fool all day for your amusement? Do you think I do it for no other reason than to underline the fact that I am scared? Because over thirty of my people were killed on the march here and I was almost in their numbers?" Something raw and feral bloomed in my chest, spurring me into near violence. I watched his shoulders tense, those curls that I wanted to sweep away from his ears not moments before falling chaotically into his scorching eyes. I was testing his resolve, I realized as my lips curled, mocking him. "And you come here and converse with your sister as if years have not passed where she has been in the company of vultures. How has she remained alive, Robb Stark? How did Joffrey and the Mad Queen not tear off her pretty little head like they did your father?"
I gasped, slamming a hand over my mouth, immediate shame hitting me with the swiftness of a slap. I hadn't meant to say that. I had never meant to hurt him so utterly. I saw it in the way that his shoulders hunched forward as if he were bracing against a physical blow. An apology jammed in my throat like a piece of stale bread only stopped by my own pride. Because I could tell that he was waiting for an apology. I could see it in the way that his eyes ran over me, cold and burning all at once. But would he really like the one I gave him? The one that said only that I meant to not speak of his father as I did? Because I meant every word before.
His utter devotion to his family drove me mad. If he had fallen in love while he had been at war with a woman… I flinched, thinking of the night before when he had whispered Talisa into the darkness of our shared bed when he had felt the warmth of my touch.
My mouth thinned, my fingers clenching as I forced them away from my lips. No. I would not give him his apology.
Slowly, as if coming alive again from a deep sleep, Robb's shoulders rolled, his fingers unclenching as those eyes ran over me. It didn't feel like it usually did - like a physical caress. It felt dangerous like the distant call of an animal in the night. I gulped as he made his way closer, raising my chin in pure defiance, my spine stiff.
"If we are speaking in the realm of truths tonight, Willa then I suppose I should repay the consideration." I shivered, his breath warm against the shell of my ear as he drew closer, leaning down. A few stray curls tickled my cheeks, mocking me. Just moments before they had been pressed to my inner thigh, curled around my fingers - I shut my eyes, slamming my mind away from that thought. "Headstrong. Frightened. And hard - hard in a way that knowing the touch of real love would curb out of most..."
My breath froze halfway out of my lunges, stuttering like the last howl of rain as he pulled away, those blue flames in his eyes entrancing. He cut me open, flayed me to my very core. Heat burned up my throat as one of his hands moved to cup my chin, assessing.
Assessing and finding me lacking.
"You're like that garden," he whispered, trapping me with his eyes and his words until I felt like a little bird fluttering for an escape. "Cuddled up against the curve between that hellish tower and the sea. Hard for people to grow anything beautiful so eventually they stopped. Or maybe they didn't try at all. And now you stand in this big castle, dressed in silks and free from your cretin of a father and you are unable to love or be loved because no one has ever tried before."
I choke, sudden tears burning at my eyes. Because the words felt true. True like a blade that finds a chink in armor to drive through with a certainty that you know will kill you. His fingers were rough and calloused against my cheek.
"You don't even know how beautiful you are," he whispered, awed and sad all at once. Pain lanced through his cerulean eyes. But in a moment, he closed that emotion off from me, pulling away with a finality that ripped me completely open. "I thought... I thought that if I showed you how much I loved you that you might soften - that you might let me in just a little. I crave your attention. I act like a boy chasing after the stars. It's pathetic. It infuriates me how weak you make me feel. How much I would give you if you only wanted it... But you don't want that. You don't want me." He said the words with such despair that my cheeks burned.
His eyes completely shuttered, his expression going cool, unfeeling. "I will leave you for tonight. My actions were inexcusable. Perhaps someday I will be able to atone."
The words felt hollow and inadequate. Did I want him to remain distant? My mind scrambled as he turned for the doors. No. The answer was no. I wanted him. All of him. And now he was walking away.
"What about Talisa?" I winced even as I was blurting them out, watching as they landed heavily enough that he stopped. My heartbeat rapidly, a rabbit trapped inside a holding pen. Blue eyes cut over to me. "I - you said her name. Once."
He blinked, taking in my stiff shoulders, my hunched, feral figure. "If I told you would you believe me? Or would it only strengthen that image of me that you've created?"
He was giving me a way out, I realized. A way to undo some of the things that had been said this night. Yes. No. I don't know. It burned my throat. Yes, it matters so much that I could scream. Yes, I need to know that you won't be like my father. I need to know that you won't do the things that he does because I was sure that at once point he was just a boy in love with a girl too. There had to be a time of innocence in his life right?
Tears burned at my eyes, the words that I wanted to say jamming one after another inside of me until I could barely whisper out a breath. I couldn't say. My throat gulped convulsively. I couldn't say a thing. Beneath me, I felt my vines wither in discomfort. Why couldn't I say a single thing?
His smile was a sad, defeated thing. "I thought as much."
And then he left, the door shutting quietly behind him.
"Yes," I breathed, clawing at my throat. But it was too late. He couldn't hear me because he was already gone.
Again, I feel like a complete dillweed. Ugh. AND Willa and Robb are unhappy in this chappie which makes me all JNDISNFDFISDNN inside. Just picture me grumbling self-depricating things to myself and you'll have a pretty accurate representation of how I am right now. Anyway, I love all you guys, don't think I don't and I am totally going to try harder. *tears up* Thank you for the reviews and follows and please sent me a little comment if you want to. Or treat me to a good 'ol fashion silent treatment. I deserve it.
Edit: So I edited this fight a little bit because I realized that it was a little harsher on one side than the other. It was honestly too easy for me to go in on Willa like that I didn't want it to be like that.