#boltoncest

She had to say goodbye to Ramsay. The thought alone clung to her like a damp shroud, heavy and suffocating. For over a year now, he had been her constant shadow, sentinel, her strange and snarling comfort. Since the day she’d dropped to her knees before her father and begged him to let the bastard boy remain at the Dreadfort, Sara had scarcely strayed from his side. She had carved a place for him in her world, or perhaps he had carved it for himself, sharpened edge by edge, with the same care he gave to his knives.

Domeric’s bones, now cold and forgotten, lay entombed in the crypt below, the air there thick with mildew and silent blame. His chamber had long since been claimed and desecrated, transformed into a snarling tribute to Ramsay, his stench, his dogs, his rage stitched into every corner. Roose Bolton had made his choice. One son was buried, the other raised up. He had become her brother.

Ramsay had spent the afternoon with blood on his hands, training in the yard like a man trying to beat the devil out of himself, or perhaps invite it in. His strength had become something she recognised without thought, his coiled muscle beneath soft flesh, weight and heat that settled against her when he drew near, the kind of closeness that left a scent behind.

She waited. Paced like one of his hounds behind her locked door, nails chewed to the quick, breath shallow. Her heart pounded with dread she could not name. The maid had gone to summon him. The air in her room was too still, the shadows too long. She imagined him there, in his chamber, eyes narrowed, thinking. Did he know? Had Roose told him she was being taken from him? That he would no longer have her to leer at, to speak to in riddles laced with hunger? Would he rage? Would he break something? Would he break her?

Ramsay loved her, in the only way he knew how. Obsessively. Possessively. Like something a wolf loves with its teeth. He would not give her up without tasting blood.

“Milady,” the maid returned, dipping into a curtsy, her knees buckling just slightly as she did so. Sara watched her closely, savouring the tremor that rippled through the girl’s frame. Yes, she thought, better. Not nearly enough of them flinch the way they should. Fear was a finer perfume than rose oil, and this girl wore it like a second skin.

Then she saw the bruises blooming across the girl’s cherubic face, ugly shadows beneath delicate flesh. A swollen cheek, purple and raw. Eyes rimmed red, not just from weeping, but from weeping long and without rest. She looked like a child’s doll, abandoned in the mud, once pretty and now broken in the most human of ways. Ramsay’s work. He must have struck her, again and again, and with relish. Sara could almost hear his voice, low and amused, coaxing sobs from the girl like a child coaxing music from a broken flute.

“Ramsay Snow is in his chambers and willing to see you,” the maid whispered, not daring to meet Sara’s eyes.

Sara inclined her head, slow and measured, though the muscles in her jaw tightened. Her hands curled into fists at her sides, hidden in the folds of her gown.

“As you say,” she replied, her voice smooth as ice over deep water. “You’re dismissed. Wash your face, girl—you look a fright.” She let the insult land like a slap, sharp and deliberate. The girl scurried away, shoulders hunched.

Ramsay was willing to see her.

Her breath caught in her throat. Beneath the mask of composure, her heart quickened, a bird flailing in a cage. Excitement. Dread. They tangled together in her belly like serpents, indistinguishable from one another.

The walk to his chambers was short, absurdly so. Their rooms were deliberately close, tucked into the bowels of the Dreadfort like secrets meant to fester in the dark. Close enough to visit by moonlight, silent as ghosts, without waking Roose or drawing the eyes of the servants. And yet, the distance felt infinite. Each step she took echoed like a drumbeat in her ears, and the ancient stone corridor stretched on as though it were alive, feeding off her tension. The candle flames trembled on the walls, as if they too feared what lay behind his door.

And still she went. Of course she did.

The stench assaulted her before she ever touched the iron handle. It seeped through the wood like a living thing, thick, fetid, and crawling with the sour stench of decay. It clung to her throat, to the lining of her nose, burrowed deep like a parasite. No matter how often the manservant was scrubbed, no matter what perfumes or ashes they tried to burn near him, Reek’s corruption lingered, unshakable, festering, as though his very breath spoiled the air around him. The name fit too well; it was not just a cruel moniker. It was true.

She didn’t want to see him. Gods, no. She hadn’t come for Reek and his sickening presence, his twitching limbs and empty eyes. She had come for Ramsay. Just Ramsay. Though even that name filled her with unease, it was at least a familiar fear. Predictable. Reek, on the other hand, was something else, something twisted and wrong on a level she couldn’t quite articulate. Something broken beyond repair.

Sara swallowed down the bile that rose at the back of her throat and rapped sharply on the door, holding her breath as it creaked open. Reek stood in the gap, his face stretched in a grotesque parody of a smile. His teeth were uneven, yellowed and rotting at the gums, and his eyes—those too-bright, too-wet eyes—glittered with something unclean.

“Master,” he wheezed, voice ragged and breath foul, “the Lady Sara is here. Shall I let her in?”

His gaze dragged over her like oil, slow and vile. There was hunger in it, but not the kind anyone would name aloud. She stiffened at once, spine straightening, jaw clenched so tightly it ached.

From within the chamber, Ramsay’s voice drifted out like smoke, dry and cold and wrapped in amusement. “My dear sister, come to grace me with her presence?” A pause, deliberate. “Of course. Make yourself scarce, Reek. I’ll receive Sweet Sara alone.”

Reek bobbed his head, the smile never faltering, not even for a moment. “Yes, milord.”

He moved past her slowly, deliberately close, the stench rolling off him in waves. She felt it cling to her skin as he brushed by, a greasy residue of filth and fear. And even as he passed, he kept looking at her, his head turning just slightly, his foul grin never fading, as though he hoped she might flinch.

She didn’t. Not for Reek.

Sara slipped through the doorway like a shadow and pressed it shut behind her with a soft thud, as though sealing away the world. The room smelled faintly of burnt wax and something older and darker, something that lingered beneath the velvet curtains and rich red tapestries, like the stale breath of secrets never meant to be spoken. “Brother,” she called, her voice barely more than a whisper, stretched thin with unease. There was a tremor beneath the word, a crack that betrayed the fear threading through her ribs. The coming absence of Ramsay had already begun to gnaw at her, a hollow ache that spread its fingers through her chest. She sagged against the door, as though it were the only thing keeping her upright.

Ramsay turned toward her slowly, as if savouring the weight of her presence, the anticipation curling through his frame. His smile bloomed with deliberate cruelty, wet and fleshy, glistening like meat left too long in the sun. Candlelight licked at his face, dancing along the shine of his lips and catching the pale glint of his eyes, which watched her with a hunger that was both too cold and too intimate. “Gods,” he murmured, voice thick with amusement, “I love when your voice breaks like that. Those little tremors you try so hard to hide. They give you away, every time.”

He took a slow step forward, then another, his boots silent against the thick rug that choked the floor like blood-soaked velvet. The room seemed to shrink with every pace he made, the shadows leaning closer.

“Don’t,” she breathed, the word escaping before she could lock it behind her teeth. But her body betrayed her. Her feet moved without thought, drawn toward him like a moth toward the promise of flame. She met him halfway, the space between them folding inward like lungs collapsing, and sank into his arms with a sigh that tasted of surrender.

“Don’t?” he murmured, voice like velvet dragged through gravel, wrapping his arms around her with a possessive ease that felt rehearsed. One thick-fingered hand drifted through the ink-black fall of her hair, slow and methodical, as though he were combing through secrets. The other clamped hard around her waist, the red satin of her dress bunching beneath his grip like blood pooling under pressure, drawing her firmly against the heat of his chest. “I prefer when you don’t try to hide those little vulnerabilities, sister,” he said, a serpent’s smile threading through the words. “You can tremble here. Whimper, if you must. I won’t tell.”

His voice was unnervingly calm, a glacial whisper cutting through the oppressive warmth of his breath as it ghosted over the shell of Sara’s ear, sickly hot, close enough to burn. The room around them seemed to shrink, dim corners pressing in like a coffin lid slowly lowering.

Sara sighed, sharp with indignation, but the sound died quietly against him. She lowered her cheek to his chest, the weight of her head sinking into the humid rise and fall of his breath. Her arms slid around his torso, palms settling on the broad, sweat-damp expanse of his back. He reeked of iron and something fouler like rusting chains or blood left too long in the sun, but she didn’t pull away. No, she breathed him in deeper, a slow, deliberate inhale, as though memorising every rancid note. Her fingers curled slightly into his shirt. There was no comfort here, there was only inevitability.

“You’re leaving in the morning,” Ramsay murmured, his voice a venom-laced whisper that slid like silk into her ear. Each word dripped with a slow, deliberate sweetness, as if he savoured the taste of her discomfort. “Tell me, sweetness—what kind of farewell will you give me? Something warm, perhaps? Or are you thrilled to be free of this place… of me?”

Sara’s fingers clenched tighter around the edge of his sleeve, her knuckles pale with strain. The flicker of a torch caught the glint of her eyes, wide and hard. “Don’t be stupid, Ramsay. You know I would never leave the Dreadfort of my own will—nor you. This parting will carve sorrow into my bones.”

“Sorrow?” he echoed, tilting his head, a slow grin spreading like rot. “Poor little pup.”

Her eyes darkened. “Don’t call me that,” she spat, the words sharp and low like the snap of a snare.

Ramsay chuckled a low, mirthless sound that crawled under her skin like cold fingers and brought a finger to her lips to hush her. His hand threaded through her hair, stroking it slowly, almost tenderly, as if petting something he meant to break later.

“Hush now, little dove,” he murmured, pressing a slow, deliberate kiss to her forehead. “Father’s taking you to Winterfell, is he? Dressing you up for the Starks like a fine morsel on a silver tray. I wonder—will Robb Stark blush when he sees you? Or maybe one of his bannermen?” There was mockery curling around his words like smoke, but the disdain was sharp, barely sheathed beneath his drawl.

Sara lifted her chin, a practised detachment dulling her expression. “We are a House of few, and the Starks will need loyal advisors more than ever. I’m only doing my duty—to our House, and the North.”

Ramsay smiled at that, if the slight curl of his mouth could be called a smile. It was a thing without warmth, a quiet baring of teeth.

“My brave, dutiful little sister,” he whispered, the words clinging to her skin, as he leaned in and let his lips ghost along the curve of her ear. Her breath hitched, though she tried not to let it.

“And what does our gracious father mean for you to do here?” she asked softly, voice strained. A shiver prickled down her spine, which she fought to suppress.

“As Castellan?” he said, his voice turning thoughtful, almost dreamy. “Keep the Dreadfort breathing. Keep the peasants quiet in their hovels. Feed the kennels, polish the flaying knives… the usual.” He gave a short, dry laugh. “He’s leaving half his men behind. Seems I’ll be standing at the gates with blood on my hands while you and dear Father go off to pledge yourselves to the wolves.”

His nails grazed her scalp with slow deliberation, not quite cruel, not quite gentle but enough to draw a soft, helpless sigh from her lips despite herself. He felt it, and that made him grin against her temple. She could feel the shape of it there, curved and cold, like a blade pressed beneath her skin.

“Guarding the castle like a loyal dog,” she taunted, her voice low, curling with mockery like smoke in the air.

Ramsay’s hand twisted tighter in her hair, the sudden jerk wrenching a gasp from her lips, sharp with pain. His breath was hot against her ear as he spoke, his voice dark with amusement. “You like to poke at the wolf, little pup. You like to bleed.”

Sara writhed in his grip, her fingers scrabbling for purchase, trying to twist away but he only dragged her back harder, until her spine was flush against the broad, unyielding heat of his chest. He pressed in close, lips brushing the tender hollow just beneath her jaw. Her breath hitched, the resistance bleeding from her limbs like wine spilled across stone.

“Hush now,” Ramsay crooned, almost tender, almost kind. One hand slid slowly from her hip to her stomach, flattening possessively, pinning her to him. “Why fight? You’ll be gone by dawn… and who knows when I’ll get to taste you again.”

His mouth ghosted along her neck, leaving the skin wet and chilled in the aftermath of each kiss, each unspoken threat.

“I don’t want to go,” she whispered, the defiance faltering in her voice. Her hands found his arm where it banded across her waist and clung, as if he were the only thing anchoring her to the world. “Tell him not to take me. The Dreadfort is mine and—”

“And you,” Ramsay interrupted, voice husky and full of hunger, “are mine.”

He bit down softly on the curve of her throat before suckling the skin with more insistence, drawing a breathy, broken sound from her. Sara’s back arched, surrendering, the last of her resistance crumbling beneath the weight of his claim.

“I thought you’d be angrier,” she whispered, breath hitching as her fingers clutched at his arm, nails digging into his sleeve like claws seeking an anchor. The air between them was thick, humid with the weight of things unsaid. “I might never come home, you know.”

Ramsay didn’t answer with words. Instead, he grunted low against the curve of her neck, breath hot and damp, and pressed his mouth to her skin. He licked, slow and deliberate, before biting just hard enough to make her flinch. His kisses were not tender; they were marks of ownership, stamped into her flesh like a brand.

“You’ll be back,” he said finally, voice rough as gravel, as though the certainty cost him something to speak aloud.

She shivered beneath him, but not from the cold. “How do you know?” Her voice was little more than a breath, barely audible. “I’ve no doubt Father intends to marry me off—”

Ramsay’s hand shot up to her throat, not choking, not quite, but close enough to make her gasp. His grip was a warning, a reminder.

“Maybe I’ll take the first night from your husband, then,” he rasped, lips brushing her ear. His teeth grazed her lobe, then caught it between them in a cruel little nip that made her hiss.

Sara swallowed her tremor, steeling herself with a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “I think that tradition is meant for maidens,” she said, trying to keep her voice light, teasing, though something colder slipped beneath the words. “And you won’t be Lord Bolton anyway, will you?”

A silence fell between them, heavy and dangerous, like the moment before a wolf lunges.

The slap cracked through the air like a whip, sharp and sudden, snapping Sara’s head to the side. Pain bloomed across her cheek, hot and stinging, and her mocking words died on her lips. She stilled instantly, her breath hitching in the thick silence that followed.

“I didn’t mean—”

“Hush, Sara. Hush now,” Ramsay crooned, his voice velvet-wrapped malice. He ran his fingers over the reddening imprint on her face in a parody of tenderness, tracing the curve of her jaw as if to soothe the very pain he had inflicted. Then, without another word, he took her by the wrist and led her deeper into the shadows of his chambers.

She followed him. She always did.

“You understand I must leave you looking presentable tonight, don’t you?” he murmured, tone laced with cruel amusement. “Bruises, blood… no, that simply won’t do. Father wants you pristine when he shows you off to Stark and his loyal dogs.”

“Then don’t,” Sara whispered, her voice barely audible. “Not tonight.”

But even as the words left her mouth, her feet betrayed her, carrying her forward with reluctant obedience. Her limbs were heavy and numb, moving not from will but from something colder. Resignation, perhaps.

Ramsay chuckled, low and indulgent, like a man unwrapping a gift he already owned. He turned her and bent her carefully over the polished surface of his desk. The chilled wood kissed her brow, sending a shiver down her spine, while the unforgiving edge pressed hard into her abdomen, a dull, aching reminder that comfort had no place here.

“Ramsay, no. Not tonight. I have a long journey ahead—on horseback, with Father, no less.” The words fell from her lips like dead leaves in frost, brittle and unconvincing. Even to her own ears, they sounded feeble, the protest of a bird whose wings had long since been clipped.

She opened her eyes and let them drift across the chamber, settling on the great tapestry that dominated the far wall. It loomed like a shadow remembered from childhood; a depiction of savagery rendered in thread. The scene was drawn from the Age of Heroes: a Red King of House Bolton locked in violent conquest over snow-swept land, the white threads of snow stark against the velvet black of shadow and the deep, arterial red of blood. The Red King’s blade shimmered with a thread of silver, a cruel glint stitched into the weft where his knife cut through the flesh of a fallen Winter King, peeling skin from muscle like parchment.

She could almost hear it, the wet whisper of flaying, the dull crack of cartilage giving way. The tapestry had hung in that room for as long as she could remember, a constant reminder of what her family was, what they had always been. The North remembers, they said, but House Bolton is preserved. In thread. In stories. In screams.

The Age of Heroes had been painted in agony, written in frost and fire and the wails of men skinned alive. Her ancestors—Boltons of old—had flayed the Starks and worn their hides like cloaks, had hung their corpses from the stone rafters of the Dreadfort like meat waiting to rot, trophies of ancient spite.

Sara exhaled, a breath that felt heavier than her chest could bear. Ramsay would not need a tapestry to immortalise his cruelty. He was already dreaming of flaying her future husband, of stringing him up in some forgotten corridor, his skin curled at his feet like a discarded robe. That was the way of the Red Kings. That was Ramsay’s inheritance: blood, knives, and the art of unmaking men.

Ramsay was unlacing her gown with slow, practised fingers, tugging insistently at the intricate woven ribbons as though unwrapping a gift he already believed was his by right. His breath was warm against the back of her neck, a serpent’s whisper in the dim candlelight.

“Ramsay. Not tonight,” Sara said, barely a tremor in her voice, though her hands had gone still at her sides.

“Are you denying me?” he asked, his voice thick with a dangerous kind of amusement. He bent over her, lips brushing the nape of her neck, then lower for another kiss where the velvet neckline curved between her shoulder blades, his touch both reverent and possessive, like a prayer uttered at the altar of something profane.

“No. No. Of course not, brother,” she whispered, and stood still as the ribbons along her spine came undone one by one, like a seam unravelling under pressure.

No one had denied Ramsay for a long time. Least of all Sara. Not since that first night, the one still vivid in her memory, a quiet dinner with Ramsay and Domeric, the firelight flickering in their cups. She’d laughed too easily then, flattered by his sudden attentiveness. But by the time the second cup of wine had been pressed into her hand, her laughter had softened, slowed, dulled under its weight. And when Domeric had excused himself, Ramsay had stayed close, so close, his voice low and steady, his eyes sharp with something older than cruelty.

It was that night she caught a glimpse of the thing inside him, that coiled, simmering wrath that slept beneath his skin, darker and hungrier than anything she’d ever dared name in herself. She’d protested, briefly, almost out of habit. But Ramsay had a way of making resistance feel childish. He didn’t argue. He didn’t plead. He convinced. He unmade.

Sara had always thought her father’s approval was the measure of her worth, she still craved the cold nod of Lord Bolton from across the hall. But Ramsay’s approval came in whispers and groans, in the grip of his fingers on her hips, in the fleeting warmth of his breath against her cheek when he was finished. It burned through her like fire through dry reeds, leaving her ash inside, but still smiling. Because when Ramsay was pleased, he made her feel seen. Claimed. Necessary.

And in the silence after, when the air was thick with sweat and secrets, he would kiss her again—soft, almost tender—as if to thank her for giving in.

As if she’d ever had a choice.

“Good. You’re perfect, aren’t you?” Ramsay murmured against her spine, each word a slow exhalation of heat against her bare skin, pulling her roughly from the recesses of her thoughts.

She shook her head sharply, as if to dislodge the weight of his voice from her mind, but no words came. Silence hung in the air like smoke. The chill of the room crawled across her exposed skin, cruel and biting, yet it warred with the searing warmth of his breath, a contrast that made her shiver and squirm. Discomfort coiled in her belly, tight and nauseating, but braided with it was that other feeling that was darker, harder to name. Anticipation. Dread and desire intertwined, indistinguishable, like twin serpents writhing low in her gut.

“Yes, you are,” he said again, firmer this time, his lips brushing the slope of her shoulder before his teeth closed around it in a playful bite that was too sharp to be loving. He didn’t mark her. He’d promised to leave her pristine, at least on the surface. But promises, with Ramsay, always carried the stench of rot beneath their silk wrappings.

She wore little beneath the gown tonight. With no lord or raven awaiting her presence, her dressing had been simple: only the red satin gown, and a thin chemise, pale and threadbare from use. The gown slid down her body in a whisper of silk and breath, pooling at her feet like spilt blood.

He didn’t pause to look. He rarely did. He simply lifted the chemise past her hips with both hands, slow but without ceremony, like a butcher peeling back cloth from meat he was already familiar with. His fingers were cold where they brushed her thighs, but the heat of him pressed close behind her was stifling and oppressive. Like a storm building behind her ribs.

And still she said nothing. Still, she stood there, bent over his desk, as she always did. As she had been taught to. Because perfect girls don’t flinch. And perfect sisters, perfect possessions, don’t scream.

Sara didn’t listen for the soft fall of his breeches. She’d learned long ago that expecting the moment and bracing for it only made it worse. Especially on nights like this, when every fibre of her being recoiled at the thought of it. Knowing it was coming turned anticipation into a blade, turned her breath shallow, turned her muscles tight and unwelcoming, her body’s last, futile rebellion. It was as if her skin tried to close itself off, to vanish, to retreat inward. But Ramsay always noticed when she resisted even silently and he hated resistance.

She stared ahead at the tapestry, blank-eyed, waiting for the inevitable. She knew the rhythm of it too well. The rough, punishing way he always took her, like it was a test of ownership he had to pass again and again. Like her pain was the proof he needed to assure himself she still belonged to him. She tried to steady herself for it, reaching for numbness, but numbness came slower now. Harder. Her mind no longer shielded her the way it once had.

Their nights often ended in bruises, raw and aching places that whispered his name even after he was gone. The mornings that followed were always the same. The long walk up the stairs to the maester’s tower, wrapped in furs and silence. She never lied, she never had to. Maester Uthor never asked questions. He would only tut under his breath as she perched quietly on the edge of the bench, legs pressed tightly together, eyes downcast.

He would shake his head as he worked, smearing salves onto the welts Ramsay left behind, offering her the bitter cup of moon tea like a Septon offering penance. But it wasn’t pity in his eyes. It was something colder. A distant, almost amused detachment, like a man watching a trapped bird slowly come to accept the cage. He never whispered a word to Roose. Never flinched at the bruises. Never seemed surprised.

If anything, there was a glint behind his eyes that suggested he’d always known this was coming. That he expected it. That perhaps, in some part of himself he would never say aloud, he found some grim satisfaction in seeing her broken too. After all, in the Dreadfort, pain was a language. And Sara was finally learning to speak it fluently.

Sara gasped when Ramsay entered her. Not from cruelty but from the slowness of it. The deliberate, creeping push that forced her open inch by inch, the careful stretch that sent heat curling through her in spite of everything. It felt almost gentle, and that was the trick of it. The softness wasn’t kindness but it was control. A performance. An illusion meant to disarm her, to make her body betray her.

He gripped her hip with one hand, firm but not bruising and with the other, he slipped between her thighs. Not to pleasure her. Never that. Only to make it easier for him. Easier for her to yield. She hated that it worked. Hated the way her legs seemed to part instinctively, how her body responded even as her soul recoiled.

Sara pressed her forehead hard against the cold wood in front of her, as if the grain could anchor her. Her teeth sank into her lower lip until she tasted iron, desperate to stay silent. But a few sounds slipped through, helpless, traitorous moans that broke free from her throat before she could smother them.

Behind her, Ramsay laughed. Quiet and pleased, the sound was like silk dragged over broken glass.

“Shh… It’s alright. Let me hear,” he murmured, his voice honeyed with mock affection. He kissed the back of her neck again, lingering just a second too long, his moan little more than a soft brush of breath against her skin. She could feel it when he smiled.

“Go on, pup,” he coaxed, the nickname falling from his lips with syrupy ease that was half endearment, half possession. “Let me hear you beg for it.”

The first time had been like this. That first night, Domeric had been in the other room, his breathing audible through the thin wall, oblivious as Ramsay and Sara “learned” each other in the dark. She remembered how still she’d been, how conscious she was of every creak of the bed frame, every breath she dared to take. Ramsay had been gentle that night. He’d moved slowly, deliberately, as though his seduction was a sacred act and not a calculated dismantling. He had coaxed her body open like a secret, like a locked door only he had the right to enter.

He’d spoken in low murmurs, calling her beautiful, calling her his, his voice smooth and coaxing as his fingers brushed her thighs and his mouth found the hollow beneath her ear. It was a softness she’d never expected from him, a weaponised tenderness that made her body tremble in confusion. When he finally pushed into her for the first time, he did so with reverence so precise it felt almost devotional.

He dragged her maidenhead from her like a secret he believed was his to take, inch by inch, not to spare her pain, but to make her remember it forever. He pulled moans from the broken cavity of her chest, slow and shuddering, coaxing them out like prayers torn from a girl who didn’t know if she was worshipping or being sacrificed. His hands moved with studied patience, every touch meant to confuse her, to tangle pleasure with guilt, fear with longing.

And he asked her then, just as she’d begun to surrender to the tide of sensation, when her mind had dulled and her body felt unfamiliar: “What do you want, Sara?” That was the moment he’d waited for, the moment she was soft enough, raw enough, open enough to tell him the truth. Or at least some fractured, desperate version of it.

“All you’ve ever wanted,” he whispered, lips at her throat. “Tell me.”

And she did. That one darkness. The one secret she’d never spoken aloud. The desire she’d buried under years of silence and duty. It wasn’t twisted. But in Ramsay’s hands, it became something else. Something ugly. She said it with a trembling voice and wide, ashamed eyes.

When the words left her lips, he smiled. A slow, knowing smile that chilled her more than any threat ever could.

Then he drove himself deeper into her—harder, claiming her with a force that erased the softness he’d feigned—and laughed when she gasped.

Sara nodded then, her eyes fluttering closed as the memory receded, dragged under by the tide of the present by the gentle bite he pressed into her shoulder, teeth grazing flesh with the same unnerving tenderness that had once fooled her into mistaking cruelty for care. A louder moan slipped from her lips, involuntary, pulled free like silk unravelling from a spool.

“Ramsay,” she breathed, voice high and fragile, teetering on the edge of a whimper. “It’s… please…”

He didn’t rush. He never rushed when he wanted her to remember. The slow drag of him inside her sent a wave of heat radiating outward from her centre, an ache that made her thighs tremble and her breath catch. She whimpered and he only smiled. His hands gripped her hips more tightly, fingers digging in just enough to ache. Then he pulled her back against him, hard, setting a new angle that made her cry out sharply, her voice echoing off the stone walls like a secret finally spoken aloud.

He found that place inside her again, the one that made her vision blur and her mouth go slack. And he stayed there. Worshipping. Forcing wave after wave of sensation through her until her knees buckled and she was gargling on her moans, unable to silence herself, unable to not give him everything.

“Say you love me,” Ramsay commanded, his voice low and rough, thick with satisfaction and need. It wasn’t a request. It never was.

“I love you,” Sara said instantly, her voice clear and fervent, without hesitation, without a flicker of doubt. She did love him. Of course she did. She loved him in a way that felt monstrous, in a way that had reshaped her from the inside out. It was a love that festered in her chest like a bloom of rot, twisting, blackened, impossible to uproot.

Her little brother, Domeric, had never touched her soul like this. Had never looked at her the way Ramsay did. Domeric had been kind. Gentle. Distant. Forgettable. But Ramsay—Ramsay devoured her. He carved out every part of her that once belonged to anyone else and made her new again, remade in his hands, shaped for him alone.

Her father’s approval, the thing she still chased like a starving dog, felt pale and useless when Ramsay fucked her. Roose had never held her like this. Had never made her feel. Her future husband, whoever he might have been, whatever banner he carried, could never hope to rival what Ramsay gave her behind closed doors. Not the power. Not belonging. Not the terrible, exquisite worship.

Ramsay wasn’t just her half-brother. He was her soulmate. Her ruin. Her salvation. Hers in every conceivable way, and she in his. Body, blood, soul, and silence. The world outside might call it sin, call it madness, but in there, in his room, with his breath on her neck and his voice curling around her, it was the only thing that had ever made sense. She was his. And more than that—she wanted to be.

“Ramsay, I love you.” The words tore from her throat on a gasp, half-laced with desperation, half-buried in surrender. And the moment they left her lips, something primal broke loose in him. With a low, animalistic growl—feral and hungry and triumphant—he drove into her one final time. His hips jerked, stuttering against hers as his release surged through him. He buried himself to the hilt with a shudder that passed from his body into hers, like a contagion.

Sara groaned, her breath catching in her throat as she tried to hold herself steady. Her legs trembled violently, refusing to support her, the lingering spasms of what he’d done still pulsing deep inside. Her fingers clawed at the edge of the wooden desk for stability, nails scraping faint lines into the grain as he emptied himself into her, filling her with the same rancid seed that had made both of them.

“I love you,” she whispered again, softer this time. A confession. A spell. A plea. The third repetition tasted different in her mouth, like the aftermath of fire.

Ramsay didn’t answer, but a guttural sound escaped his throat, pleasure laced with possession, satisfaction threaded with something darker. He didn’t pull out. He stayed inside her, unmoving for a long moment, as if anchoring her in place. As if marking her.

Then, with a grunt, he shifted, lifting her from the desk with a surprising gentleness. She found herself in his arms, her legs dangling weakly, her body slick with sweat and something far more intimate. He turned her to face him now and held her tightly to his chest, where she could feel the steady, brutal thud of his heartbeat. Like a war drum. Like a warning.

He kissed her cheeks once, then again, as if wiping away the evidence of her unravelling. The tears she hadn’t realised she’d shed were swept aside by the press of his lips, but not out of kindness. No, Ramsay didn’t comfort. He claimed. Every kiss was a brand.

Then he kissed her mouth deeply, slowly, tasting her, tasting the last of her gentle moans, the last of her resistance. His tongue moved with languid intent, drawing her back under, pulling her into that suffocating warmth where pain and affection had no borders.

When he pulled away, her lips were parted, her breath shallow.

“I love you too. You won’t forget that, will you? In Winterfell, or wherever else Stark commands you to go. Don’t forget that I love you,” Ramsay murmured, the words ghosting across her skin like smoke, then pressed a kiss to her temple.

Sara shook her head quickly, almost violently, like a child desperate to reassure a parent. She wrapped her arms tightly around his neck, burying herself in the only warmth left to her. “I won’t forget,” she whispered, though the words felt like swallowing glass.

“Good, pup,” he breathed, amusement curling around the syllables like a slow smile in the dark. He liked that name—pup—because it reminded her she was his, something small and obedient, something born to heel. “Sleep here.”

It wasn’t a suggestion. It never was. But Sara nodded as if it were her idea. “Of course, brother,” she murmured, her voice soft, and tightened her hold around him, arms clinging like vines wrapping around a gallows pole.

Ramsay made no move to rise, no gesture toward the basin of water sitting unused in the corner. He didn’t bathe, and he didn’t let her bathe either. Cleanliness was a luxury he withheld like affection, pointless, in his eyes, when sweat and sex and the scent of possession clung so much sweeter. He liked the way it dried between her thighs, the way it coated her skin, the way it stained the sheets and soaked into her hair. He wanted to smell himself on her, all night long. That was the real reason he pulled her close when they climbed into bed, wrapping an arm around her waist like a chain.

So she let him. She didn’t flinch. She didn’t protest. She simply lay against him, sticky and sore, clinging to him like he was something precious rather than the thing that hollowed her out a little more each time. His breath warmed the back of her neck as sleep began to settle in, heavy and unwelcome.

There was no comfort in his embrace. Only heat and weight and the sharp reminder that she would leave this bed tomorrow carrying more than bruises.

She would carry him in her scent, in her silence, in the ache between her legs and wherever she went, she would never be far enough to forget.

Ramsay didn’t need chains to keep her. He’d already buried himself too deep.

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꧁ Next Chapter ꧂

After an eventful ride through the snow-laced hush of the Wolfswood, stolen kisses beneath skeletal trees, embraces warmed by breath and the brush of gloved hands, Theon brought Sara back to Winterfell just as the afternoon light began to thin into dusk. The sky overhead had dulled to bruised lilac and bone-grey, the air carrying the promise of frost. Their mounts clattered into the courtyard, hooves echoing against the ancient stone as if announcing something secret and sacred.

Theon helped her down from Dark Strider with a reverence that made her breath catch, his hands gentle at her waist, his lips brushing her brow like he was trying to memorise her warmth. Sara tilted her face up to him, her mouth parting slightly, still faintly dazed from the feel of him, the taste of him. But something in the air shifted, cold and sharp.

Her eyes flicked upward and there he was.

Roose Bolton stood at a high window, cloaked in shadow and furs, his gaze fixed on her with a look that froze the blood in her veins. His scowl was not theatrical. It was clinical. Measuring. And behind those pale eyes, there was no fire, only calculation. Sara went still beneath it, the flicker of warmth in her chest immediately snuffed out. Guilt needled her spine like a blade.

Theon did not notice. Or if he did, he pretended not to.

They exchanged brief farewells at the base of the stairs, hers more breath than voice, his a lingering glance and the ghost of a smirk and then they parted. She climbed the tower alone, her cheeks still flushed, not from cold or exertion but from the residue of stolen pleasure. Once inside her chambers, Sara didn’t summon Brinna or Jocey. She couldn’t bear the touch of hands right now, even friendly ones. The solitude was a balm, a shield.

She undressed herself, layer by heavy layer, and exchanged her fine riding gown for a simple nightdress, pale, threadbare, fraying at the hem. It was unremarkable, plain in every sense, but it comforted her in ways silks and velvet never could. She slipped into wool socks, draped a worn shawl over her shoulders, and moved to her writing desk.

She lit a candle, watching its flame shiver before she dipped the quill into ink. She meant to write to Ramsay, as she had done many times before, carefully chosen words of devotion and loyalty, of longing and obedience. But her fingers hesitated above the parchment, mind still caught in the woods, in the way Theon had looked at her, touched her, kissed her. The quill did not move.

Then, a knock at the chamber door. Three soft raps. And Jocey’s voice, tentative and thin.

“My Lady?” The door creaked as Jocey peeked inside, her expression hesitant. “Lord Bolton has requested your presence in his chambers. Tonight.”

The words landed like cold iron. Sara’s back stiffened, her shawl suddenly feeling insufficient. She didn’t speak at first, just stared at the flickering candle, at the blank page before her, the emptiness where her thoughts had been moments ago.

She knew what this summons meant. Her father was not the sort to leave things unspoken for long. Roose Bolton would want an explanation. Or worse, no explanation at all. Only silence, and submission. The image of his eyes from the window returned to her, sharp as scalpels, already dissecting her with quiet disdain.

Sara stood slowly, smoothing her nightdress as if that might prepare her for what lay ahead.

“Aye,” she murmured, voice steady but soft. “As you say.”

And with no more protest, she followed Jocey out into the corridor, her bare steps muffled by the stone. The flame at her desk guttered in the draft and went out.

She dismissed Jocey with a curt nod before reaching the threshold, knowing without needing to be told that Roose would want to receive her alone. The handmaid bowed, slower and more formally than usual, her eyes averted not out of deference, but something closer to fear. She disappeared down the corridor, her steps quiet, fading quickly.

Sara stood for a moment before the heavy door, staring at the carved wood, tracing the grooves of its ironwork with her fingers as though it might offer some resistance. It didn’t. Her hand found the handle, and when she pushed it open, the warmth of the hearth spilt out but it was not a welcoming warmth. It was the smothering kind, thick and cloying, like blood left too long on stone.

Her gaze fell immediately on him.

Roose Bolton lay reclined on the fainting couch near the fire, its velvet cushions embracing his pallid form. He was naked, white skin stretched across a lean frame, hairless, as if nothing had dared grow upon him. The only colour in him was the faint red flush beneath his ribs and the dull glint in his pale eyes.

Sara’s breath caught in her throat. She swallowed it down like poison and stepped inside.

“Father?” she said, but the word came out small, soft. Not the voice of the young woman who had ridden through the woods and laughed with Theon Greyjoy. This was a younger voice. One soaked in old fear, old habits.

His gaze came to her, and trailed over the threadbare nightdress. “Darling girl,” Roose murmured, his voice a low, syrupy thing. He extended a hand toward her, fingers long and pale as bone. “Come to me, Sara.”

Her feet carried her forward before her thoughts could catch up. She took his hand, dry, cool, and let herself be pulled down beside him, the weight of her settling carefully against his side. His eyes never left hers, unblinking, distant and yet all-consuming. His other hand found her leg, high above the knee, where the thin cotton of her nightdress offered little in the way of modesty. He drew slow, deliberate circles with the tips of his fingers, each motion feather-light but laden with intent.

“You look like your mother when you wear white,” he whispered, his breath brushing against her brow before his lips followed. The kiss was dry. Reverent. Possessive.

Sara’s throat tightened. She had prepared herself for wrath, for cold words or clipped demands, but she had not braced for this. For tenderness twisted into something else. This was a different punishment.

“Thank you, Father,” she said softly, almost instinctively, and allowed herself to lean into him. There had been times when this strange, fractured closeness was all he’d given her. And for too long, she had craved it. Even now, even this, felt safer than his silence.

“My beautiful girl,” Roose murmured, pressing his cheek into her hair. “You’re good, aren’t you? Tell me.”

Sara hesitated, just for a second. But hesitation had its price.

“I’m good, Father,” she answered, her voice low and obedient. A lie wrapped in silk.

His hand tightened on her waist, the pressure sudden and bruising. “You are, aren’t you? Pure. Well-behaved. Mine.”

The chill in his tone turned the room colder than the snow outside. Sara felt a ripple of unease crawl through her chest, slow and coiling like a serpent.

“Yes, Father,” she whispered again.

Roose made a sound of approval deep in his throat, something between a hum and a growl, and slid the sleeve of her nightdress off her shoulder. Her skin, still chilled from the ride, was bare to the firelight. He pressed his lips there, slow and deliberate, and let them linger.

“My perfect Lady,” he breathed against her skin.

Sara closed her eyes.

And thought of snow. Thought of the woods. Of wind through trees and the sharp pull of reins in her hands. Of Theon’s laughter in the cold, and his fingers in her hair. She clung to that like a thread.

A single thread, unravelling slowly in the dark.

“Are you sore from your ride?” Roose asked, his voice low and level, almost tender, though it held that same chill beneath it that he never quite shed. His eyes lifted to hers, pale and probing, while his lips continued to skim her shoulder. The hand on her leg shifted beneath her nightdress, pressing just above her knee, then gliding with precision until it found the knot of tension nestled deep in her thigh, where the saddle had bitten too long into her.

“Yes, Father,” Sara breathed, the words catching slightly in her throat. The flicker of nerves in her voice did not escape him.

Without a word, he drew her closer, shifting her in his arms until her back met the firm line of his chest. She moved stiffly at first, unsure whether to resist or yield, but when his hand pressed between her shoulder blades, gently, insistently, she sank into the cradle of his body, nestled like something claimed. His breath ghosted the tender spot behind her ear before his lips brushed it, a kiss not hurried, but possessive.

“Be still, darling,” he murmured.

She obeyed. Her limbs quieted, and her shoulders fell. The ache in her hips throbbed more acutely as she stopped resisting it. His hands resumed their work, slow and steady, pressing into her worn muscles, undoing the ride’s toll with unsettling care. He did not fumble. He knew precisely where to touch, where the pain lingered beneath the skin.

Sara closed her eyes, breathing slower now, letting herself be tended to. His hands coaxed gentle sighs from her lips. The weight of the firelight flickered across the floor. In his arms, the world grew quieter, until all that remained was the rhythm of his touch and the unspoken things that swirled beneath it, murky and deep.

“I love you, Father,” Sara whispered, the words small, delicate as lace, barely rising above the pop and hiss of the hearth. She didn’t know why she said it, it came unbidden, like breath on glass.

Roose made a sound low in his chest, more a rumble than a reply, and pressed another slow kiss to her skin, this time on the crook of her neck, colder than it should have been. “Good girl,” he murmured, and his hand resumed its path along the seam of her aching muscle, kneading gently, methodically reaching higher, until she melted further into him.

Time seemed to loosen its grip on them. The room, cloaked in firelight and shadows, grew warmer, quieter. Sara’s limbs were slack now, her body pliant from his attentions, her eyelids heavy. Nestled in her father’s grip, she felt small and protected, like something prized, or perhaps kept.

He held her like that for a long while. “Sweet girl,” Roose said again, almost to himself. His hand drifted upward to comb through the dark strands of her hair, his fingers slow, reverent. “You truly do look like her when you’re like this. Unguarded and soft… all mine.” His breath brushed the crown of her head. “In certain lights, you’re the very mirror of your dear mother.”

Sara stirred faintly, a soft sound leaving her lips, half sigh, half breath. She shifted just enough to loop her arms around him, tucking herself more tightly into his frame. The embrace was instinctive, childlike almost, but her eyes remained open, fixed on nothing, as if trying to remember someone else’s reflection in a mirror she no longer carried.

No one else ever said she looked like Lady Bethany. Her mother had been gentle and warm, always half lit from within by something Sara had never quite inherited. Sara was sharp where her mother had been soft, cold where she had glowed. And yet, in his arms, beneath his voice, she let herself believe—for just a moment—that perhaps she could be shaped into the ghost he remembered.

“Sweetheart,” Roose murmured, his lips grazing her temple as though the words themselves might settle into her bones. “You shouldn’t have pushed yourself so hard today. Galloping through the Wolfswood like a stray—doing gods know what, risking your strength, your safety. My poor little lamb… so tired, aren’t you?”

The endearment coiled around Sara like a silken rope. A tremor pressed up through her throat, and she barely caught it before it broke free as a whimper. Her voice, when it came, was small and brittle. “I’m sorry, Father.”

“Shh…” he hushed her, low and warm and honey-thick. “It’s alright, little lamb. Hush now.” His arms gathered her more tightly, and with a slow, practised shift, he drew her onto his lap, turning her gently to face him. The back of her neck prickled, nerves alight beneath the softness. But his hands, firm and steady, were only brushing her hair back from her face. He pressed a kiss to her brow, then each cheek, and finally her lips, slow and deliberate, as though sealing a blessing.

She managed a small smile. She never knew how to meet this kind of tenderness. It was rare for him, unfamiliar. And yet it filled her with something dangerously close to warmth.

“Sara, sweet Sara,” he breathed, almost a chant, and nuzzled into the crook of her neck. She felt his breath drag in long and deep as though he were memorising her scent. She remained still, unsure whether to lean into him or pull away.

After a beat, his voice dropped further. “I need to be leeched, dearest.” The words came as soft as a lullaby. “The old weariness is setting in again, the heaviness in my blood… I don’t want the maester’s fumbling or some servant’s cold touch.” His hand cradled the side of her face, thumb brushing over her cheek. “I want your hands, darling. Just yours. Can you do that for me?”

Sara knew it wasn’t true. He said it often, when he was tired, when his mood darkened but she knew she was no better than the servants, probably worse. She always placed the leeches too far from the veins. But his voice—low and syrup-slow—wove around her like fog, and she was too worn, too hollow, to resist the need threaded through it.

“Yes, Father,” she whispered, nodding before she could doubt herself.

And Roose smiled, thin and satisfied, the corners of his pale eyes softening as he tucked a lock of hair behind her ear.

“Good girl.”

Any stray thought she might’ve had of Theon’s kisses, of Ramsay’s shadow, even of Robb’s boyish courtesy slipped like smoke through the cracks of her mind, scattered by the low thrum of her father’s voice. Each endearment, murmured like scripture, carved out the pieces of her will and replaced them with a still, obedient quiet. That had always been his intent. Before she’d been a sister or a lover or a prospective bride, she had been his. Roose’s daughter. His blood, his echo. He had known her before anyone else had even dared imagine her name or shape. And somewhere, she understood with grim certainty, she would always belong to him.

Roose had prepared everything for her already, as though he’d known she’d obey without hesitation. On the side table near his chair, the bowl of leeches writhed in a shallow dish, thick as spilt ink, their bodies pulsing slowly as they waited. Nearby, the gleaming metal clamp caught the light of the hearth in brief flashes, like a needle glinting before the wound.

She leaned forward, silent and deliberate, and took up the bowl with one hand, the clamp in the other. Her breath slowed as she stepped closer. Sara shifted carefully off his lap, the feel of his warmth lingering in her skin, and brushed his dark hair back from his temple, revealing the pale stretch of his neck and collar. With reverent care, she set each leech in place, one after another, along the faint blue latticework of veins that ran beneath his chest, his arms, his legs.

Roose did not flinch, though his muscles tensed with each new latch. Small shudders ran through him, not of pain, but release. He exhaled deeply, and from time to time let out low, satisfied groans as the leeches drank. “Good,” he murmured, almost inaudibly. “So good…”

Sara stayed beside him, kneeling as her mother once had in the half-light of the sickbed. She remembered it as a child—the hush in the room when Bethany tended to him, the way her mother’s touch had been careful and light, yet unwavering. Now it was her hands doing the tending, her calm presence keeping him tethered.

Once the last of the leeches had affixed itself, Sara returned the bowl to the table and settled against his side, close enough to feel the slow rise and fall of his breathing. She reached up and combed her fingers gently through his hair, grounding him, soothing him, anchoring him in place.

In that moment, there was nothing else. No war, no courtship, no past sins or future terrors. Only the hush of the fire, and the weight of her father’s head resting just slightly against hers.

Sara leaned forward and pressed a gentle kiss to her father’s temple, the gesture instinctive now, born of learned habits and half-buried longing. Roose chuckled low in his throat, the sound devoid of warmth. “My little lamb is affectionate tonight,” he murmured, the corners of his mouth curling with quiet amusement.

Sara gave a small nod, her smile subdued. “A little,” she whispered, folding her hands neatly in her lap.

“I’m surprised,” he said, though his tone held no true curiosity, only veiled accusation. “I would have thought you’d spent your hunger for affection already… on Greyjoy.”

Her stomach turned at the venom behind his words, coiled and waiting. She opened her mouth, fumbling for the safest answer. “We only went riding,” she offered.

“You should have done nothing,” Roose snapped, voice cold and decisive as a blade’s edge. “He’s beneath you. A ward. A hostage. Not a true lord, nor fit to look twice at my daughter.” He spoke with such calm certainty that it left no space for disagreement. “I’ve better hopes for you than the base pleasures of an Ironborn brat. You will be obedient. You will put an end to this foolish indulgence.”

Sara swallowed her shame, her voice barely more than a breath. “As you say.”

Roose turned his pale eyes on her, sharp and expectant, the kind of look that pinned her down more effectively than any restraint. “Swear it,” he commanded, his voice now a whisper, but heavy with weight.

She hesitated only for a breath then bowed her head. “I swear it, Father,” she murmured, the words slipping out like an incantation, binding and irreversible. “I will not indulge Theon Greyjoy’s affections any longer.”

His silence felt approving. The tension in his shoulders eased ever so slightly as he closed his eyes again, leaning back into the chair with the air of a man who had just secured something long disputed.

Sara sat still beside him, her hands trembling in her lap, her promise echoing silently between them like the last breath before a storm.

She watched carefully as the leeching continued, her hands steady but her breath shallow. One by one, the fat black leeches swelled with blood, their slick bodies bloated and stilling as they gorged themselves. Her father’s pale skin was streaked with crimson, the bites dark and weeping. But Sara did not flinch. She resumed her quiet ministrations, her touch light, precise, almost reverent. Her fingers brushed softly across his chest and arms, moving with a practised grace she hadn’t known she possessed, though not born of medical skill, but something more dutiful. Devotional.

She clamped and removed each leech slowly, murmuring soft reassurances whenever Roose grunted or winced. His discomfort was fleeting, quickly soothed by her ointment and the warmth of her palm pressing it in with deliberate care. Her hands were stained with his blood by the time she finished, red to the wrist, and yet she did not rise to clean them. Instead, she remained close.

When the last leech had been discarded, Roose reached for her without hesitation, drawing her into his side with the ease of a man claiming what was his. His arm wrapped around her shoulders as he stroked her hair with the other, fingers combing through the strands with slow, rhythmic passes. “You soothe me like no one else can, my girl,” he murmured, voice low and heavy with exhaustion. “Even when I’ve every reason to stay angered, I find I cannot—not when you are so lovely, so loyal.”

Sara exhaled a quiet breath and let herself be drawn in fully, nestled against him as if returning to some distant, long-denied sanctuary. Her head rested over his heart, and she listened to its steady, muted beat beneath his skin. In that moment, she felt less like a woman burdened by schemes and secrets, and more like a child again, small and safe in her father’s arms.

“I’d keep you here, if I could,” Roose said softly, almost dreamily. “Tucked away, hidden from all those who would pull at you or use you. I’d not lose you—not to Greyjoy, not to your brother, not to the games of kings and lords. You’d stay with me, always. My little girl, my sweet lamb.”

His words should have chilled her. But they didn’t. They wrapped around her like the fur-lined cloaks she wore in the yard, heavy but warm. She closed her eyes and leaned into his chest, her voice small. “I’d like that.”

“Would you?” he asked, a breath of something like relief behind his tone.

“I belong here,” she whispered, barely louder than the crackle of the hearth. And in her heart, she believed it for tonight at least, she believed it.

“Then pretend,” Roose said gently, curling his hand at the nape of her neck. “Pretend, just for tonight, that there is no world beyond this room. No wars, no brothers. Only you and me.”

She nodded immediately, her voice catching on the words. “Yes. Let me stay.”

“Mm.” He pressed a kiss to her hairline, voice like low thunder beneath the storm. “Good girl.”

She was so tired and relaxed, she hardly noticed his hand had returned to her inner thigh, nestled under the skirt of her nightdress. And as the moon rose higher, casting long shadows across the stone walls, Sara stayed curled in his embrace, his voice a lullaby, his praise a tether, his affection the only certainty she could trust before the dark swallowed them whole.

⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾ ⋆⁺₊⋆ ☁︎

꧁ Next Chapter ꧂