Our Houses Do We Bind

by orphan_account

Summary:

Robb had wanted so badly to go on the hunt.
And yet, here he was. Stuck in his room because his mother thought he looked a bit peaky this morning.
-
King Robert gets the joining of the Stark and Baratheon houses he always wanted, but not in the way anyone would expect.

Notes:

Hoping to make this a series so we can get to the comfort part, but works nicely as a one-shot for you emotion masochists out there :)

Chapter 1

Robb had wanted so badly to go on the hunt.

The royal party had been in Winterfell for a couple of days now and Father had organised a hunt to celebrate the King’s visit. They had plenty of stags and animals to hunt in the Wolfs Wood and Robb had been training with bows and spears for the task since he was a boy. This was a perfect opportunity to show that the respect and admiration shown to his father was well-earned and that he’d raised his heir to be a great, skilled man too. Robb was going to prove to the King and all the Lords that he could hold his own and make a fair, smart kill; be the strong alpha heir the North needed.

And yet, here he was. Stuck in his room because his mother thought he looked a bit peaky this morning.

Robb’s cheeks still felt red with embarrassment from his mother’s fussing as they broke their fast with their guests. After her inspection of him, she had soundly banned him from going out, despite his protests. The King had laughed uproariously over his bacon at the display and said Robb had better listen to his mother; no man could survive Catelyn Stark’s fury. Robb’s father had just smiled on, quietly agreeing.

Theon, the prat, had mocked him through breakfast as had his other siblings, Arya taking a particular glee from it. Even the young prince Tommen and princess Myrcella had giggled into their porridge.

Robb was just glad the Crown Prince hadn’t witnessed the scene, though it was sure to get back to him eventually. Joffrey, despite his charming front when the caravan was welcomed to the castle, couldn’t quite hide the mean streak that lurked behind cold blue eyes, and Robb was sure the prince would take any opportunity to lord something over him.

The Crown Prince hadn’t appeared for breakfast and neither had the Queen until halfway through the meal. She had checked in on her son when he hadn’t risen with the rest of her children and found him rather bedridden, struck by the beginnings of a cold that he must have caught on his way up to Winterfell. She wouldn’t let the master see to him, but said she’d sorted him out with remedies they’d brought on the road with them, made him comfortable and left him to rest. The King just shrugged and continued eating, while Maester Luwin was too polite to show offense at the slight to his expertise.

Robb wondered if the boy was just putting it on to get out of the hunt. He’d seen him watching Robb and Jon sparring the day prior, not quite hidden in the shadows of the balcony, and noticed the tightness in his expression. The jealous disappointment at seeing someone better than yourself at something. Robb was familiar with that feeling, though he was practiced at letting it pass him by. Jon was better at the sword and Theon the bow, but Robb had his own talents that neither of them could compete with so he could content with that. He had caught the Prince’s eye from the edge of the sparring ring while drinking from a waterskin and tried to wave him down to practice with them, but the blond had just scowled and marched off, back into the warmth of the castle.

The brat was probably happy he wouldn’t get shown up on the hunt today, though Robb heard he was good with a crossbow at the very least.

He just wished he could have gone on the hunt himself. Even Bran got to go! Though it was probably more to watch than take part. His brother hadn’t been invited until that morning and Robb squashed down the bitterness that rose in him at the thought. Father had to be able to show off at least one of his heirs to the King, much to mother’s displeasure. Jon and a reluctant Theon had looked to be taking care of him during the day’s adventures as they set off together on horseback with the king’s men. Robb could do nothing but see them off with an encouraging smile from his bedroom window until they disappeared into the mass of the Wolfs Wood.
Now he was alone.

He paced his room a few times, refusing to rest as his mother intended. He was too full of pent-up energy to lay or sit still. He had opened and closed the book Maester Luwin had given him for reading several times and only ever gotten a couple sentences in before snapping it shut and pacing before the fireplace again.
Maybe a proper walk would help.

Robb cautiously checked if the coast was clear before leaving his room and starting down the corridor. He passed no one as he went, meandering down all sorts of hallways and rooms, through doors, no destination in mind. He wanted to go outside, but he didn’t want to be caught, so he stayed near the bedrooms where people were unlikely to be this time of day.

As he neared the guest quarter, a pleasant scent lapped at him gently. He almost didn’t notice it at first, subdued as it was on the still castle air. Soft, like a warm summer breeze rippling slowly through a flower field. Sweetness like honey, but only a spoonful, and a dash of citrus, bitter under it all.

Curious. Lemons were hard to come by this far North, even in the glass gardens.

Robb followed his nose.

It led him to the royal family’s suite of rooms. They were empty, most of them out on the Hunt or the little ones touring the Gods Wood with their Uncle Tyrion, from what he’d heard at breakfast. He didn’t know why a lush smell like this would be coming from here, especially when he hadn’t recognised it emerging earlier during the King’s arrival or in the couple days since.

It was strongest by a door near the end of a corridor. Robb pressed his forehead to the grain and inhaled deeply. There it was. The scent filled his head thickly and he could almost imagine he was out on a picnic during the summer years, eating the rare lemon cake with honey while the sun shone on high and bees buzzed at the buds around him. He swallowed the saliva that pooled on his tongue and panted, suddenly realising how dizzy he felt.

Between the throb of his own heartbeat in his ears, Robb heard a keening call from inside the room.

Before his brain could even form the want, his hands scrabbled at the door handle and shoved it open, crossing the threshold faster than he thought possible. He was immediately bowled back against the closing door with a slam, foreign hands fisted in his jerkin.

Cold blue eyes stared into his own with an intensity he had never been subject to before. The mop of pale blond hair above was messy and slick with sweat. Pink skin glistened everywhere with it, all the way down, and further still. Oh my-

The Crown Prince Joffrey was in here, and he was naked.

Robb would have let loose a startled laugh if the whole sight hadn’t stirred something viscerally in him. He gasped wetly. And then-

It was in his mouth. The smell, the taste. It was in his lungs, in his veins, all around him.

If there had been any room to move between the door and the body pressed to his front, Robb would have shuddered. As it was, Joffrey somehow moved closer against him still. His gaze pinned him in place like a bug in a maester’s collection, unblinking and fierce. He grew closer and closer. Robb’s blown eyes crossed before his vision was full of gold threads and a hot nose was pressed to the sensitive skin of his neck tucked under his jaw.

A deep inhale against Robb’s throat. The keening call sounded once more, so close now; Joffrey. It vibrated along Robb’s own throat and he growled back instinctually, their voices resonating and making the air roll around them. Goosebumps raised along Robb’s spine.

Sharp teeth clamped at the base of his throat and bit down. Hard. The skin covering Robb’s mating gland broke.

Omega.

Robb clutched at the creature before him, wide expanse of skin firm beneath his frantic hands. He wanted to touch every part of this divine being, this wonderful thing. This new and better part of himself. He felt lifted, a bird on the wind. This must be what flight felt like. He soared.

His omega.

The omega nuzzled at the mark he’d made on Robb and nipped the space around it gently. He licked at the light blood Robb could feel beading at the bitemark on his neck and moaned at the taste. Robb moaned too, helpless to do anything but let the omega do as he pleased.

A far part of his brain wanted to question something. Something was not quite right here. There was something important he was missing.

But with his arms full and his attention occupied, Robb let the feeling wane. There were more worthy matters at hand.

Fingers clawed at the carved buttons of his jerkin and then the doublet beneath, lightning fast, dexterous even in desperation. Robb hurried to help, wanting as much skin on skin contact as he could as quickly as possible. He shrugged the layers off, dispatched his belt, whipped his tunic off, breaches, small clothes, until he was bare before his lover, because that’s what they were now, lovers, that’s what they would be.

The omega jumped up into his arms, wrapping his legs around Robb’s waist, a fist in his hair tugging sharply to the left. Robb followed the direction, taking him to the bed and dropping down with his prize into what he now realised was a beautifully constructed nest of furs and tunics. It smelt strongly of his omega. Delicious.

The hand in his hair tugged him towards a long, flushed neck, ripe for the taking. Robb ran his lips up the length of it in stilted bursts of chaste kisses, unsure where to lay his affections first. It seemed obvious; the mating gland summoned him like moth to a flame, but still he hesitated. He closed his eyes tight and pressed his forehead to it instead.

It was then that he realised they had been grinding feverishly against each other since they entered the nest. His hips wouldn’t still, driven on by the rampant desire plaguing him. His cock swelled where it pressed against the omega’s hard prick, occasionally slipping below, skating between his thighs, and collecting slick from the sweet hole that waited for him, to smooth their wild friction. A knot was forming at the base, thick and urgent.

His omega’s other hand went down to Robb’s cock, directing it to press against his entrance, and on the next thrust – there! Robb was inside his omega. It was unreal. It was godly. Wet and slick and tight and his. But not his quite yet. Not technically.

Again the hand in his hair pulled. This time anxious, a desperate but pleasured whine from its owner that rang forlornly in the short breaths between them. His head was adjusted to get his lips back to level with the mating gland, unmarked and singing to him of summer and treats, nature and a lifetime.

Robb’s hips sped up to the jackrabbit speed of his racing heart.

It was right there.

He felt his canine’s itching with the need to sink his teeth in and claim. It was getting unbearable. Excruciating to hold back. Right there. Right there.
Robb could feel tears drop into his hair above him and tears from his own eyes slid down to merge with the sweat soaking the skin below him.

A word whispered against the shell of his ear.

“Please,” Joffrey said.

Robb bit down savagely and came, knot popping on his final thrust.

His omega tasted of salt.

The world turned white.

And then black.

Chapter 2

Notes:

Not a one-shot, woop woop!!
Don't expect an upload schedule though. I'll probably just upload chapters as I finish them and when I find the motivation lol.
Have some more smut, as a treat <3

When Robb came to, he was being moved in small shoves and a voice was muttering over him with some truly foul language.

“Fucking cunt… imbecile, move…crushing me…lazy mutt… to the Seven…”

He winced and groaned as he was rolled over onto his back, an ache pulling in his groin as he was jostled. An unhappy sound mirrored above him before the weight over Robb’s hips spread out over his whole front like a fire-warmed blanket and relaxed. Robb’s arms came up to steady it, hold it close against him. The blanket trilled in delight, before clearing its throat grumpily and falling silent.

What even…

Oh.

Oh Gods.

“I’m so sorry.”

A huff of air snorted across his collarbone. Ten sharp fingernails dug meanly into the skin at Robb’s ribs where hands clutched his sides.

“I should think so to! You fucking fell on me, you great lump; I could have died! Took me ages to roll us over - with absolutely no help from you, even though I’m the one in a delicate-“

He cut himself off, and Robb was starting to think Joffrey was this warm purely from the rage that filled him. Surely that made more sense. The heat fever had just been a wild, shared hallucination and all this could be forgotten.

But the tenderness at Robb’s neck where his mating gland lay and the fact it pulsed to the same rhythm as the wonderful suction around his knot, wringing the last few spurts of cum from him, told rather a different story.

He felt tears clot along his closed lashes even as pleasure rocked through him; gentle now, less urgent, but still very present.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t stop, Your Grace. I’m so sorry I bit you.”

The Crown Prince tensed up on his chest, and Robb couldn’t help the hitch of breath at the extra tight squeeze that gave his manhood. The arms around him clung tighter, a slight shake through them.

“Well I hardly wanted to bite you either, Northern barbarian. I hate you! And your cold castle. And your stupid fucking family too. I wish we had never come here. I wish you would all just-” Robb heard a sniffle. He cautiously brought a hand up to cradle Joffrey’s head against his chest. The prince didn’t move an inch at the contact, but when he started stroking through his light hair softly, the man reluctantly started to relax. “I hate this,” he mumbled jadedly.

“I’m sorry.” They lay there together. Just breathing for a moment. Robb could feel the rise and fall of Joffrey’s chest in time with his own. It calmed him slightly from his initial panic and upset. This was all Robb’s fault, what had happened. He was older. He had presented earlier. He had had The Talk. He should have inferred what the divine smell was from the moment it came to him and simply walked the other way. Father had taught him to be better than other knotheaded alphas, and he had gone and behaved like one anyway.

He thought of Sansa too. She had been so excited when she heard of her betrothal to Joffrey. Robb had been unsure whether they would be a good match, if the Crown Prince would be kind to her like the princes of song. He had ruined that dream for her now. He had robbed Joffrey of the chance to prove himself to her.
With grim acceptance, Robb vowed to accept whatever punishment the king deemed necessary for defiling the Crown Prince. He was a dishonourable man now.

The hairs beneath his fingers were fine and wonderful. Every time he moved them a gentle waft of his mate’s scent would drift to him, happy memories of better times, illusions of intimacies in the long summer they would never share. He would miss this.

“Don’t worry, Your Grace.” Robb whispered. “You’ll only have to put up with me until my execution.”

With a whirl of motion, Joffrey batted away his hand away and the contact across Robb’s chest was lost, startling him enough to open his eyes.

Joffrey’s face hovered an inch above his own.

Robb was captured by his eyes again, seeing them so close. They were no longer icy but lit with a roiling fury and passion as his pupils expanded to a night’s sky. Something animal lurked in the dark. Predatory.

Fingers curled around Robb’s throat, and he subconsciously brought a hand of his own up; not to stop it, he was surprised to find, but just to rest on the slight wrist. To feel his mate’s pulse beneath the skin and trust him implicitly to end his suffering quickly.

The hand on his neck was firm but not tight. Robb could feel his Adams apple brush gently against Joffrey’s palm as he swallowed. The thumb pet at the bite on his neck reverently.

“No. No one hurts you.”

Joffrey shifted his hips and a gush of liquid seeped out around their joining. Robb’s knot had gone down enough to free them, and he sighed in relief as Joffrey started to rise off him. It was short-lived however, as the omega dropped down again with a determined shudder and a filthy slick sound, striking lightning across Robb’s senses. The alpha in him preened at the omega’s clear approval and desire, but the discomfort at the reality of their situation clung to the back of his mind.

“We cannot just-“

“Too late now,” the omega rolls his hips again with a moan, the hand on Robb’s throat squeezing lightly, possessive. Robb’s vision swims, then tunnels on the beautiful being sat astride him, sweaty and lean and his. “My- my heat’s not over. I can feel it- I need more.”

He tries so hard to stay focused. There’s something he needs to stay focused for. Joffrey. Joffrey’s the Crown Prince, betrothed to another. Robb is heir to the Lord of the North, probably to be promised to a Northern girl. Joffrey is…

Joffrey is riding him into the furs with vigour now. He rises and falls and pants and sweats, taking Robb’s cock so well and being gloriously vocal in taking pleasure from him. Robb barely deflated after knotting him the first time and he’s certainly back to full hardness now, knot reswelling at the base for another go at filling his omega. He sealed the deal on the mating bite portion of their coupling last time. This round, he’ll plant him full of pups.

Robb softly knocks the hand away from his throat which had gone lax with distraction, before swinging up to a sitting position. He bends his knees so he can better angle up into his sweet omega’s hole to hit the right spot in him on every thrust. His partner keens over him and grasps at his shoulders for support, throwing his head back to reveal his lovely neck. It’s stretched out just for Robb and he takes, mouthing frantically at the skin, worrying more marks into the flesh around the bite that binds them.

He’s hungry. Voracious. He can’t get enough. Never enough. His hands paw all over his omega’s hips, back, shoulder blades. At some point, he reaches up to hold one of his mate’s hands in his, clasps it tight and gets a gentle squeeze back.

He stares into his lover’s wanton eyes as the omega cums over him. His omega’s prick spends between their bellies, covering dried come Robb hadn’t noticed from last time, but that he savours the sight of.

Twice. He’s satisfied his omega twice!

Robb’s knot pops past his omega’s rim one last time and then he’s cumming himself. Ecstasy. He can’t imagine ever getting used to this level of pleasure as it thunders through him, sends sparks across his vision.

There’s a noise somewhere, but it seems far away. All Robb can focus on is the omega in his lap, who’s leaning heavily on him again, catching their breaths together, letting their overworked hearts settle.

Robb wonders how many knots an omega needs to get over their heat. He knows his father told him during the stilted talk about mating he gave Robb after his first rut, but the information eludes him now. He can’t find it in himself to care. Robb would keep this up so long as Joffrey wished or, more likely, until he died of exhaustion beneath the insatiable omega.

Joffrey looks so perfect, even while tired, sweaty, and unkempt.

They stare at each other, for a long moment.

Which of course is when the door to the guest chambers slams open and all hell breaks loose.

Notes:

I am so hyped to get to The Drama :D

Chapter 3

“Darling, are you well? I heard yelling, what-“

Joffrey and Robb froze, and the hurried footsteps petered out just over the threshold.

“Who is- …How dare you-“

Robb hated to break the nest, but he scrambled to bring furs up and closer around them. He needed to keep Joffrey shielded from prying eyes where they were both most vulnerable. Who would have the audacity to interrupt an intimate mating? He couldn’t see who was at the door around Joffrey’s torso and arms which were curling around him protectively, chest doing its best to concave like it could hide Robb in Joffrey’s ribs alongside his racing heart. The scent of citrus in the air had turned sour. Robb strained to rub his mating gland, and thus his own scent, over as much skin as he could reach in effort to calm him.

Footsteps stormed towards the bed with an accompanying enraged scream.

Robb needed desperately to protect his mate, but the omega was still above him. Perhaps if he rolled them over, physically covered his omega with his own body, the assailant couldn’t get to him. He started moving- only to be forced flat on his back to the mattress by a firm, quick hand.

Joffrey sat fiercely over him, uncaring that the furs Robb had tried to raise were falling away. His palm was splayed with unexpected strength on Robb’s bare chest to hold him down and out of the way as two foreign hands appeared on the scene, their intent to hurt clear in the violent curl of sharp nails itching to draw blood. They slashed at Joffrey’s forearm in the space Robb had occupied moments prior, and Robb howled at the harm done to his omega, trying futilely to wrestle his arms into action from where they’d gotten tangled in the nest furs. Joffrey responded faster however, swiping the invading hands aside and backhanding their attacker hard across the face with a resounding thwack.

As quick as it had started, the action was over.

Robb could only look up in a horrified stupor as the Queen, standing next to the bed, turned her head back to look at them in shock from where it had whipped to the side. A bright weal bloomed across her cheekbone.

She raised her hand hesitantly to touch her face, but stopped when her bloodied nails caught her eye. All the rage drained from her as she looked between the blood beading up along Joffrey’s arms and her own stained hand.

“Joffrey-”

The Crown Prince hissed at his mother savagely and then roared in wordless anger. The sound echoed off the stone walls, louder than they’d been during any of their lovemaking before. Robb would be surprised if most of the castle didn’t hear. The man was all lion in this moment, defending what was his. Robb blushed to be the object of that protection, even if a strong part of him yearned for the roles to reverse so he could help in some way.

Queen Cersei flinched but stood her ground hovering by the bed. Her attention shifted back and forth between her son, whom she regarded with worried desperation poorly hidden below an attempt at composure, and Robb, still half-hidden in the furs, who was eyed with outright repulsion.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you, darling, I promise, but we need to get you away and safe from this foul rapist while his rut is sated-“

She was cut off yet again, by a furious snarl, and was only just able to dodge back from the arc of Joffrey’s fist.

He panted heavily, leaning low over Robb once the momentum of his miss got the better of his balance. From so close, the whites of Joffrey’s eyes were visible all the way around his irises for how severely he was glaring blades at his mother. Robb could practically see his mate’s pulse point fluttering through the bite on his neck it was speeding so fast. He gently pet along Joffrey’s thighs to either side of his hips in a steady soothing motion, kneading his thumbs into the muscle. It seemed to work much to the Queen’s visible displeasure as Joffrey took a couple large gulping breaths, closed his eyes for a long blink and then looked back up at her with a gaze of steely calm.

“If you threaten my mate again, mother, I’ll blind you.”

The Queen blinked. “But dear, that alpha has dishonoured-“

“I dishonoured him!” Joffrey declared. There was something in his tone, something in his eyes that rocked an uneasy feeling through Robb. A twinkle of sick satisfaction buried in the words. Like this statement filled Joffrey with immense pride.

Robb shook away the notion. He must be mistaken.

“No, the Queen is right, Your Grace. I’ve done a terrible thing. I expect no forgiv-“

Joffrey rolled his eyes above him once he’d clapped a hand over Robb’s mouth. “Would you shut up already? Get over it.” He turned back to his mother. “If you want someone to blame, mother, blame yourself for leaving me here – unguarded – knowing full well I was going into heat this morning when you checked on me. Were there honestly no trusted betas in our company who could have been stationed at the end of the hall or are you that prejudiced and paranoid against them?”

Queen Cersei didn’t respond, just stood there with her hands clasped tensely in front of her, face purposefully blank. There was a smear of blood around her wrists from her reddened nails.

From the open door came the far patter of several sets of hurried footfalls, and then a shout from the entrance of the guest corridor. The Queen turned back to the door with a swish of her skirts and strode over to peer through, a hand on each side of the frame like she could be a blockade to whatever danger approached. At whatever she saw out there, she pursed her lips and tutted, before stepping across the threshold and closing the door behind her.

Given how willing Queen Cersei was to commit violence to save her son from a perceived threat, Robb was fairly confident no one would get to them unvetted, even possible competitive alphas, though nearly all were probably away on the hunt still. Joffrey, on the other hand, still seemed trapped in his heightened instincts of fight or flight, and since he was still knot-tied to Robb and unable to do either, he was nearly shaking with tired adrenalin.

He still had a hand over Robb’s lips too.

Robb pressed the tiniest kiss to his palm.

His mate turned back to him with a flush of annoyance, so Robb did it again. This time Joffrey whipped his hand away like Robb had licked him and wiped it across his own chest, shuddering when his palm passed over a sensitive nipple by accident. Robb’s breathing deepened at the sight, his hands gripping at the thighs he still held. He didn’t have time to get carried away however, before there was a voice calling outside the door, the scuffle from earlier over.

“Robb? Her Grace tells me you are in here. Are you alright, my love?”

His mother’s voice.

“Yes!” His voice cracked on the simple word. Robb cleared his throat, embarrassed, while Joffrey snickered at him. “Yes, mother, I’m fine.”

“I have been worried sick, young man. Your room was empty, no one had seen you in hours. We had the whole castle searching, and now we find you here in the royal guest suite- with a newly presented omega by the smell of it! You better not have bonded her, or so help me-“

Robb had buried his face in his hands at the start of his mother’s tirade, but the Crown Prince had soon grabbed his wrists and pinned them by the sides of his head instead. Embarrassment coiled in his chest, and he could feel himself turning red, cheeks to chest and further. Joffrey cocked his head to one side and looked down on him curiously with a certain hunger, eyes big and dark.

“Oh he’s mated and bonded me good and proper, Lady Stark, no doubt about that,” he called out with a wicked smirk.

Old Gods and New, Robb wanted the furs at his back to swallow him up and drown him. This was the most mortifying thing to ever happened to him. He suddenly became overly aware of Joffrey’s hot hole around his prick still, squeezing so delightfully. Good and proper indeed. What had he gotten himself into?

A rather scandalized spluttering came from the other side of the oak and the Queen chimed in from beside his mother, still guarding the door.

“It’s true. I checked.”

“Robb!” Was all his Lady mother could bring herself to say, dismayed astonishment clear in her tone.

“I suggest we leave them to it, until Joffrey’s heat and your boy’s rut is over so they can face the consequences of their actions with sound minds, Lady Stark. In the meantime, my brother Jaime can stay posted at the end of the hall. As a blood relative, he’ll pose no threat to Joffrey.”

Catelyn must have marginally composed herself by then because her shaky voice followed. “My Ned’s brother, Benjen, is visiting Winterfell. He’s a beta ranger of the Nights Watch. He can change guard with your brother so he might get some rest. And we’ll make sure only betas come up from the kitchens with food and drink for the boys… for the men, I mean.”

“…Thank you, Lady Stark. How… thoughtful of you. Goodbye Joffrey, I’ll see you in a couple of days, darling.”

“Bye, Robb,” came the terse farewell from his own mother, and then the fading footsteps of the women as they left together.

Robb dropped his head back into the pillows miserably.

What a nightmare.

A nose pressed immediately to his neck, inhaling his churning scent of humiliation. Robb was never sure what his own scent smelled like, as it was too close to the scents of home he experienced every day. Too close to the forests he grew up in, hunting leathers, chopped wood, frozen streams and snow over pine. It probably sharpened the cold during the Long Night when he was in a negative mood.

Joffrey seemed to enjoy it thoroughly though, whatever it was, as his tongue laved over the mating bite greedily. He started to gyrate his hips at an agonizingly slow pace, not quite free enough to move up and down, but the tight circular motions brought a now familiar haze up Robb’s spine turning his brain thick like the sweet honey filling the air around them again.

“You hear that, alpha?” His omega purred into his neck, smoothing Robb out against their nest. “We’ve got a whole couple more days of this.”

He bit down over the mating mark again and the alpha wailed.

Chapter 4

Notes:

Uni's been kicking my ass but now the hols have started, I've been able to write again! Hope you all have a merry christmas and happy holidays, if I don't update again before then :D

The next two days passed in a pleasure-fogged haze.

Robb came in and out of full comprehension. He managed to get a grip on himself, figuratively, for long enough between bouts to ply Joffrey with food and water. He would run a cool damp cloth over his mate’s forehead, between his legs and over the rest of his heat slick skin, only to help dirty him again moments later when their needs rose high on the tide.

Maids brought them fresh cloths and supplies which were left outside their door. The poor girls were terrified after they initially tried to bring it directly to the side table but were roared out of the room by Joffrey. There was no way the news of this mating had not filtered through the whole castle and Wintertown at this point, even if mother had asked only the most discreet of servants.

The alpha and omega pair both managed a few hours of sleep here and there, but even still, Robb was exhausted when, in the early hours of the third day, Joffrey’s heat fever broke, releasing his own rutt with it. The sweaty blond collapsed in a snoozing pile among what few furs weren’t stained from their activities. Robb managed only to put another couple of logs on the fire with half-lidded eyes after his knot calmed before burrowing down as well, tucking his mate in close to his side.

When he blinked awake again, Joffrey was gone and Robb’s mother was looking sharply down her nose at her son, jaw tensed with her disappointment.

This was worse than any look he’d been dealt before. He had always tried to do well by his mother; heed her advice, keep her values, make her proud. Family, duty, honour. He’d disgraced everything she held sacred. With a grave clarity, Robb understood why Jon avoided Lady Stark’s presence at all costs. At least in this case, Robb had fairly earnt her ire.

Robb’s eyes skittered around the room, wriggling to look around, but unable to unearth himself much from where he’d been tightly folded into the nest. His mate wasn’t by the fire, nor by the window, nor brooding in a dark corner. Gone.

When he turned eyes back to his mother, she sighed, expression gentling.

“The Queen took her son to her own rooms down the hall as soon as he woke. You have both been summoned before the King now you have returned to your senses.” She paused for a long moment and lay a hand upon Robb’s wrapped shoulder, giving it a firm, reassuring squeeze like she did before he left on hunts or to shadow father in meetings and trips to tour their bannermen’s castles. He’d never particularly noticed the light wrinkles by her eyes. They were usually turned up with a subtle smile at their family’s antics and japes. Now they were downturned with a tired sorrow. “Why, Robb? Why did you not just stay in your room?”

His heart ached at the tone of her voice. She had tried to sound stern, but her worry showed through the cracks his actions had split through her. Robb found himself tearing up as he tried to find a response, leaning closer into her touch. Once he started, it all tumbled out in a jumbled mess.

“I’m- I don’t know, Mother. I- I didn’t know I was going into rutt, I swear. It should not have been due for another moon. I just remember wanting to go on the hunt so badly, I could not stay still… I must have wandered too close to the guest house and picked up his scent. I’m so sorry. I tried to leave, I promise, but he sounded distressed. He bit me as soon as I stepped through the door, and I held back from biting him for as long as I could, I promise. It was just- He was-… I’m sorry, mother…”

“Oh, my love,” she cupped his face and wiped his tears away with her thumbs. She breathed deeply but offered him the smallest, slightest of smiles in reassurance. “I am sorry I did not see the signs either. I saw you were feverish but assumed only that it was a cold.” She pinched his cheek like he was a child again. “I should have known your Stark blood would not allow you weakness to chill weather.”

Lady Stark straightened up and smoothed her skirts, all business again. She put a stack of clothes at the foot of the bed, which Robb was embarrassed to note were the clothes he’d arrived in that she must have gathered from the floor and folded.

“I have had a bath drawn for you in your own rooms, and then you will need to come see the King, your father and I in the Lord’s solar. The Crown Prince and the Queen shall meet us there.”

His lady mother left the room to give him a sense of privacy to dress. Ridiculous, since she must have seen more than enough even with most of his body cocooned in all the pelts and fabrics in their nest.

What a nightmare.

He had no clue what his fate would hold in the coming hours. Joffrey had seemed determined that Robb would not be executed, but that had been in the throes of heat. His mate may well have had a different attitude upon waking fully and be personally calling for Robb’s head.

It would be in his right to do so.

Robb was no coward.

With some more tactical struggling, he managed to pry himself up from the bed, dress hurriedly whilst ignoring the shake in his hands, and set off to his chambers to get ready for his private trial.

 

-

 

Seeing anyone but his father sat behind the desk in the Lord of Winterfell’s solar was a queer sight indeed. Even more so given the King of Westeros sat proudly in his father’s chair, looming tall and wide, imposing but out of place. Robb’s father, Lord Stark, stood serious behind and to the right of the king, arms folded across his chest. His mother stayed to the left by the wall, and she nodded subtly in support as he entered, lifting her chin pointedly until Robb remembered to hold himself tall and confidently too.

The Queen and her son had yet to arrive.

“Your Grace.” Robb bowed politely.

The King just grunted and stared at him with hard blue eyes. Kind of like Joffrey’s eyes, but beady and shallow. The blue was slightly different, dull and dark. Robb felt his skin prickle with discomfort, but he did not flinch beneath the assessing look.

The door to the solar swung open behind Robb, fanning air across his back. Light summer breeze, sweet lemons. Not as strong as it was in the room with their mating bed, but so achingly familiar all the same.

Confident footsteps sauntered up beside him and a shoulder brushed against Robb’s with a firm pressure. Robb closed his eyes to master his urge to turn toward his mate and check he was okay. The new bond between them was insistent but he wasn’t in rutt anymore, Robb told himself. He was the son of a respected Lord and alpha. He could bloody well conduct himself with decorum in front of the bloody King of the country and not cling to his son like moss to a tree.

When he opened his eyes, the King was still staring at him. Robb couldn’t bring himself to look at his father, or the Queen who had taken up residence opposite Catelyn at the side of the room. He could feel the smug rage rolling off her from here and Robb worried what she and Joffrey must have talked about before coming here. Now Robb was no longer physically tied to her son, he would not fall under her protection. One problem at a time though, and the King held the most power in this situation.

King Robert cleared his throat… and smiled at him?

“Robb Stark! I hear you managed to do some hunting after all, even in your fever. Sniffed out a good purebred bitch to stick your knot into and bond, cream of the Westerosi crop, didn’t you boy?” It was spoken more as a statement, dry with wheezing humour that none but the King in the room chuckled at. Robb remained still in shock as the large man’s attention slid to his son for the first time since the blond entered. His nostrils flared in irritation and longsuffering disgust. Joffrey’s scent soured from his earlier self-assurance, and it twisted Robb’s insides like a blade. “I should never have held out hope you would be an alpha, Joff. You were always on the weak and whiny side. I should have known you would be a pederast, neck-stretching breeder like your uncle.”

Enraged, Robb stepped forward. The thump of his hands against the top of the desk as he leant over it loud in the following quiet of the room. “I’d thank you not to use such offensive language regarding m- the Crown Prince.”

The King narrowed his eyes. “I am your king, boy, have some respect. And that welp is my son, I will say what I damn well please about him.”

“You have some respect, Your Grace. Your son has as little control over the direction of his presentation as you do. Only the Gods can decide that fate, and if they determined that the Prince is to be an omega then that is a wonderful thing and not to be scorned. I don’t care what opinions they have in the South or with your bloody Seven, but here in the North, we respect omegas, especially male omegas due to their rarity and the extra hardships they face in birth. Punish me for speaking out against you if you will; have me flogged, hang me, behead me, mount my skull on a bloody spike. I expect you’ll do so for mating your son out of wedlock regardless, but don’t you dare speak ill of Joffrey that way or his designation again. I will not stand for it while I live.”

The room was silent, only a distant howl reaching them from outside to echo along Robb’s last words. Grey Wind, he knew instinctively.

He felt oddly calm and more present than he’d been in days.

Robb’s father had taken a step closer to the desk Robb and the King faced off over but had kept his mouth shut. Northern honour dictated he side with his son’s fight for omega rights and respect, but Robb knew his father’s esteem for his king and friend had given him pause to see if this would resolve without his intervention. It was also a chance for Robb to prove himself to him. He did not need his father to fight his battles for him. He could tell through the riling scents in the air however that his mother was winding up to interject, and the Queen whose own citrus scent had spiked sour at the King’s words had mellowed slowly. Robb could feel her assessing him in his periphery, calculating.

He didn’t dare wonder what Joffrey thought of all this.

Robb just stared down at his own namesake with unyielding defiance.

To his great surprise, the King’s eyes began misting over with a thin veil of tears.

The man laughed wetly and rocked back in his chair, the old wood creaking ominously below his weight.

“Oh that Stark passion for those you love. I have missed that dearly all these years. You may look like your mother, but you have your Aunt Lyanna’s spirit and your father’s bullheaded honour, that’s for sure. As worthy qualities as any other possible match now. To think… my boy and a Stark.” King Robert turned to Lord Stark, wiping at his eyes and beaming. “I know we were drawing up contracts for Joff and your Sansa, Ned, but this, this is a good alternative. We’ll have them wed here before your Old Gods, of course, in Winterfell as we don’t have the weirwoods let alone a heart tree in the capitol. But we can have a big do in Balor’s Sept back in Kings Landing as well to sate the sycophants. It's not every day the people get a Royal Wedding. It’ll be a big cause for celebration, and you’ll get to plan it all as my Hand. What say you, Ned?”

Eddard Stark’s face had not so much as twitched during the exchange, but he looked across the table sternly at both young men. “Robb, Prince Joffrey, what do you both say to this? Are you in agreeance or would you rather part ways? There may be methods to dissolve this bond, though Maester Luwin tells me all recorded are very painful, but it is up to the both of you.”

The King rolled his eyes. “Come now, Ned, they have already sealed the deal, so to speak. It’s not worth-“

“It is, your Grace.” Catelyn cut in. “It is always worth asking their opinions. Robb has been raised to rule as the Warden of the North, not the whole of the Seven Kingdoms, and your son has just had big changes occur to his personhood that will affect him for the rest of his life. They have not had time to consider this wholly or talk to one another. Please, just give them a couple of days to think and decide on this.”

“While you make a good point, Cat, they forfeit that choice when they fucked and bit one another, pardon my language. Word will have gotten around and I won’t have news spread of my son’s dishonour and rejection- because that’s how they’ll see it, don’t kid yourself to say otherwise! He’ll get no other marriage prospects as a sullied omega, or if he does they’ll cost me an arm and a leg extra in dowry for bonding spoiled goods.” Robb growled, and the King smiled at him approvingly. “One day, I can give you. You’ll have one day to get to know one another, and then you’ll marry on the morrow after that. Honour demands it, Stark.”

The Queen had evidently had enough, at this point. “Robert, surely you don’t mean to let our son wed this raper. The people will surely see reason if we hang the boy for his treasonous harm to the Crown Prince and-“

“You will not hang my son, Your Grace. They were both under the influence brought on by your son’s presentation-“

Robb didn’t care for the rest of the arguments as he felt the air shift behind him again and the soft opening click of the solar door’s latch. He turned just in time to see blond hair and the edge of a fine red tunic slip around the door frame and escape down the hall.

He hastened to follow.

Chapter 5

Notes:

Happy New Year!! Death to the year of the rabbit :)
Also I'm updating tags as I go, so make sure you check them before each chapter if you think you might need to.
I have plans for this fic but not enough to be able to warn you this far in advance lmao

Robb kept on Joffrey’s trail all the way through the castle, following his nose when he lost sight of the Crown Prince around corners or through doors. The picnic on a summer’s day smell had clouded over, winds picking up a storm the further Joffrey marched through Winterfell. The lemon cakes were bitter and stale, the fruits not quite ripe when they’d been baked. The honeybees were angry and ready to sting.

It grated against Robb’s senses to smell his mate hurting and angry, but he kept his pace steady, shadowing Joffrey’s footsteps from the same distance. He watched the people he passed in Joffrey’s wake. Some went about their business but a couple of serving girls and an errant knight glared after him from the edge of the corridor where they’d been brushed aside and likely insulted by the sweeping prince. Robb growled at them as he passed even as he apologised for his mate’s rudeness and rushed ahead.

He made sure no one followed them.

The omega marched all the way out of the keep, across the courtyard and through the entrance of the godswood, where he slipped between the trees.

Robb whistled on his way passed the kennels and Grey Wind slunk from the shadows of the building, grin wide and tail wagging in greeting after so many days apart. He ran a hand through the fur over his pup’s brow and allowed him to re-scent his wrist. Despite his wash earlier, Robb was sure there would still be traces of Joffrey on him, scent clinging to him stronger due to their full and fresh bond. Grey Wind lapped at his skin once, twice in acceptance and then padded off into the godswood, circling to the left of the path Joffrey took.

Two guards stood at the entrance, nodding respectfully to Robb.

“Alyn, could you ensure we are not disturbed please?” He made to pass through to the trees but hesitated as the memory of the king’s party’s arrival came back to him. “If Ser Clegane comes by, try to suggest he stand guard here too, or at least give us some time alone before he enters. If he insists however, let the man through.”

The guards nodded in mild relief of the instruction, justifiably intimidated by the Hound and his reputation.

Robb moved into the godswood, circling to the right.

 

-

 

Joffrey was pacing near the heart tree, as Robb approached.

He kicked at the dirt and exposed roots, muttering angrily under his breath. His hands clenched and released at his sides. Rocks skittered into the black pool nearby every time he passed. The great weirwood watched solemnly as always, as tracks of red sap slid from its carved eyes.

Robb stayed back, out of sight between the foliage and fellow trunks. He scanned the area for threats and found none, only the paired glint of gold at the opposite side of the pool’s clearing which signalled Grey Wind’s protective gaze. No one could approach the Crown Prince without their knowing and ability to come to his aid quickly.

The young man came to a sudden stop, pulling a frustrated hand through his hair with a glare and crouching at the waters edge, back to the tree. He looked into the water and his anger melted slowly from his face with every deep breath he took. Robb observed, transfixed, as Joffrey reached a hand out slow and steady to hover above the water. He fluttered the pad of his index finger against the dark water to watch the ripple of his reflection spread across the surface.

Robb yearned to go to him but held back. Joffrey probably wanted to be alone right now. He was about to be forced to spend the rest of his life with Robb, the prince would hardly want to see him now in his last moments of freedom. But the dumb alpha-brained part of Robb kept him from leaving. He needed to see that Joffrey was and would remain safe right now, with his own two eyes.

“I know you are there, you daft cunt. Stop lurking like a coward, it does not suit you.”

Affronted and pleased by the backward compliment in equal measure, Robb stepped out from his cover and into the clearing, while Joffrey kept up his examination of the pool.

“My apologies, Your Grace. I was trying to give you space.”

Joffrey snorted without humour. “Yes, a whole several yards of space as you and your dog stalk me like prey. I’m so very grateful.” He spat. “Just wait until my dog comes for a walk, we’ll make it a proper fucking family trip.”

Robb thought better than to pick up on the mention of the Hound. Grey Wind had retreated further away into the undergrowth at his mention, but Robb new his direwolf was still nearby. The alpha walked closer to his mate so there were only few steps between them, where Joffrey stayed bent over the water.

“I am sorry about this situation. I wished to come and check if you were… alright after your father’s harsh words. I had not known the South held so firmly to those demeaning views. My mother has never mentioned it. Your father- He was- What he said was wrong. You deserve better than to be talked to or treated like that. If he were not King, I would-“

He worked his jaw to withhold the renewed anger within him.

Joffrey’s head snapped up, and that strange glint that would come and go was alight in his eye once more.

“You would what?”

To be the direct centre of Joffrey’s attention again after what felt like ages, stoked a fire in him, his veins warm and raging. Robb swallowed. Those eyes tied him so close to a summer’s day. It was bizarre how quickly they could both roil and calm his blood with a simple glance.

“If I could not reason with words, I would knock sense into him with a fist for slighting you so. If he ever lay a hand on you in anger or prejudice, I would challenge him to the sword for your honour, to first blood or death on your word.”

Joffrey’s expression was hard to parse, but Robb believed him pleased at the response from the slight up curl at the corners of his mate’s handsome mouth. He stood and cocked his head, appraising Robb from head to toe. Robb could feel it like a physical touch, sliding beneath his clothes featherlight, an echo of skin to skin, and fought off a shiver.

The Crown Prince stepped up close to Robb until they were breathing the same air. The omega had to tilt his head up slightly to meet his eye. Robb flushed brightly when he realised he likely hadn’t noticed their height difference before due to all the time they had spent horizontal thus far.

Joffrey’s pale hands came up between them and fisted crossly at the shoulders of the cloak he’d thrown on in haste earlier. They shunted him to the side and back, and Robb was too startled to do anything to stop them.

For a split second in his disorientation, he feared Joffrey was tipping him over and into the pond, but his back hit roughly against the uneven bark of the weirwood trunk. He narrowly avoided cracking his head on one of the thick, low protruding branches that arched out and up from it’s middle. An uncomfortable knot of wood dug into his hip.

“How is it fair,” Joffrey hissed, scowling something fierce, “that I spend my whole life trying to be someone my father might respect or show - even a shred - of interest in, and all it takes for him to like you is for you to disagree with him and threaten his life once?

“He likes to hunt and drink and whore. I don’t care for the simpering prostitutes, and most drink tastes foul or dulls the senses, but hunting? Violence? Ruling the kingdom? I’ve tried so hard to impress him on the few hunts he actually takes me on or with lessons on warfare or dusty old kings that mean nothing now, but it’s never good enough for him. I’m always too much or too little. Always such a fucking disappointment even before I found my designation.

“And then you!” He shakes him viciously. Robb brings his own hands up to cup Joffrey’s elbows so they don’t knock into the trunk or branches around them. “You outright argue with him, spout about fucking honour and respect, even though you think he’ll kill you for it, and he cries! He fucking cries and smiles and welcomes you into the family no trouble, gladly enforces it even! I was preparing to defend you if mother pushed for execution. All King’s need a consort and you are well-behaved and not unattractive, as good or better as any other candidate they might have tried to foist upon me.

“Instead, he’ll probably declare you king of Westeros over me the day after we wed, and I will be powerless to my birthright, a useless Sevens-damned ornament.”

Joffrey panted through his anger, having leaned more and more heavily into Robb during his speech to keep him pinned to the tree, though Robb made no motion to break free. The Crown Prince shifted once more, like a pantomime of pulling Robb close only to slam him against the wood again but slow and steady this time, letting Robb come gently to a still against the white bark.

“I’m not mad at you.” Though he seemed at great pain to say it.

“I know you’re not, Your Grace.” Robb said quietly. He raised a palm to cup Joffrey’s jaw as tenderly as he dared. The pads of his fingers brushed against the smooth cut of Joffrey’s hair behind his ears that tickled in the autumn breeze. The strands were the colour of some of the pale roses they grew in the glass gardens, opposite the blue winter roses. Joffrey’s skin felt delicate as a rose petal too beneath his hand. “I will not steal your birth right from you, this I swear. Though I must give up my claim here to my younger brother Bran to go South with you, I will be glad to do my duty, serve as your King consort and assist your rule how you see fit. I would have us be equals in our bond, but the kingdom is yours, my King.”

Joffrey’s eyes darkened at the title and he nestled into the palm at his face, hungry for affection that Robb was only too willing to give as he brushed his thumb across his mate’s cheekbone. The hands clasped in his cloak lightened their hold and instead snaked up to dance through Robb’s own hair and skate across the plains of his face.

“No one has ever… defended me like that before. Not to my father. My mother does her best, but she always has her own agender. People can only go so far against a king, after all. Not you though. I believe you. You haven’t a scheming thought behind those pretty eyes. You want me to be happy.”

The omega smiled, mouth open to bare teeth in terrible amusement at the sentiment. He laughed sharp in the crisp air of the godswood and though it made Robb’s heart skip that he’d improved his mate’s mood, he was starting to grow familiar with the scantest hint of unease that accompanied much of what Joffrey said or did. The warmth of his body pressed to his, even through all their combined layers, bid his thoughts elsewhere.

“Thank you, Robb Stark.”

A yip from nearby parted them.

Grey Wind came loping out from between the trees with pride in his gait. Something was held between his jaws. As he approached closer, Robb could see the twitching, frightened limbs of the creature, still alive.

A rabbit.

The neck was held firm but delicately in Grey Wind’s mouth, the rest of it’s body hanging to the side limp for fear of being caught on a sharp tooth, but it’s little legs jumped occasionally in the air as the flight instincts got the better of the poor thing. It squeaked in distress, where it could still breath through Grey Wind’s parted jaw.

Robb was surprised. Grey Wind made small kills like this all the time, but he rarely played with his food in such a way.

The direwolf padded closer and stopped at Joffrey, tilting his head up to stare at the Crown Prince with golden eyes.

“A gift?” Joffrey knelt so that he and the large pup were eye level. “Is that for me? Well, you are a much better gentleman than my lousy Hound, that’s for sure. Thank you…”

“His name is Grey Wind, Your Grace,” Robb prompted.

“Thank you, Grey Wind.”

Joffrey reached out gradually, still weary of the tales of direwolves he had likely heard, and lay a hand on the twitching rabbit’s body, petting fingers over it’s fur curiously. The rabbit was fairly large and had a fine coat of light brown-reddish fur that faded to white at its belly which trembled with its fast, shaking breaths. Joffrey cupped a hand around it’s stomach and lifted a little to take some of the weight off its neck against Grey Wind’s canines. He wasn’t quite able to wrap his fingers around the whole width of the rabbit, but it was enough. The small thing eased slightly in his hold.

“Kill it.”

Grey Wind bit down with a snap and crunch of the rabbit’s spine. It jolted in initial panic but was dead in moments. Joffrey pet at its sides with a soft touch and Robb suspected he could feel the creature’s final heartbeats fade to stillness as the life drained from its body.

“Good boy, Grey Wind. I shall have this pelt to line my riding gloves.”

He carefully pat Grey Wind’s happy head and pulled the floppy rabbit from his maw. Robb caught it with a start when the corpse was tossed to him as Joffrey stood up once more, brushing his hands off on his breeches.

“Could you get that to a tanner and glover? Your beast is interesting. I like interesting.”

And with that Joffrey ambled off the way he had come and back towards the peaked tops of the keep’s towers above the treeline that marked the exit to the godswood.

Robb gawked after him and then back at Grey Wind, who sat patiently on his haunches, tail stirring the twigs and leaves behind him. He sighed and ruffled the direwolf’s fur with his free hand.

“You better not be courting my mate, Wind. We both know you would win, and then where would I be.”

The rabbit was still warm in his hand.

Notes:

Joffrey just be collecting cute and loyal dogs huh?

Chapter 6

“Robb!”

Robb had been idling around the castle, keeping out the way of all the bustling Winterfell staff and the royal contingent where he could. It felt nice to stretch his legs after, well… The fresh air upon the battlements was doing him good too.

He felt like every person’s gaze he passed lingered on him and prickled at his back. Everyone would have heard by now.

Turning to the nearest tower where the shout had come from, Jon was just closing the door behind him. When he looked back, his brother had a rare but familiar twinkling kind of grin seeping into his expression. The one that reduced his eyes to slits and let his teeth show instead of his usual tight-lipped frown.

Robb groaned and tilted his head to the sky.

“You heard then.”

Jon laughed as he approached. “’Course I heard. They did try to cover it up by announcing you had both fallen ill with the same sickness, but the timing was suspicious, especially since you had not spent time together to catch it, nor did anyone else have it. And then there were the maid’s reports of noises-“

“Alright! Alright, you can stop now, please.”

“Never!” Jon delighted. He was practically giddy. Robb couldn’t stop his own smile if he tried. Seeing his brother so lively was a sight for sore eyes. He’d not been cheerful beyond a flat line since the King had arrived whereupon Robb’s lady mother had ensured Jon was cloaked in shadow and swept under the proverbial rug. His brother came close so they were out of earshot of the guardsmen’s patrol and raised a brow. “How was it then?”

Robb blushed. “Oh well, I suppose it was somehow more frantic than I expected. And very sweaty. He was very err, eager-“

“Gods no!” Jon looked alarmed. “I’m not Theon, I do not need all the gory details. I meant,” he softened and lowered his voice to a whisper, even though none were close enough to eavesdrop, “what was the bite like? Can I see?”

His brother had always been curious about mating bites. It had been assumed that it was the beta intrigue for the intricacies of other designations; most bastards were betas after all, something about their sires not being bonded and living in sin, his mother said. Robb thought it was stupid. Betas could still bond even if they didn’t go through a heat or rut, it was very common in fact, though bites needed to be re-administered now and then as they faded like an ordinary scar. The connection was still felt between couples. Besides, Jon was his half-brother, and they were so alike in most other things, why would they not be in this as well. Robb was entirely unsurprised when his brother fell into a rut only a sennight after his own, despite Lady Catelyn’s shock.

Robb knew the cause of his brother’s wonder over a mating claim too. Despite Robb’s insistence that Jon would always have a place in Winterfell under his father’s and then Robb’s own rule, Jon was determined that the Night’s Watch was his only destiny. It was supposedly the only place of honour a bastard could hope to go and Jon had had his sights set on it since he was a young boy.

Which meant taking the black and the strict vows that came with it, swearing off all sex and the hope of mating, forever and always. Robb knew though -he knew- that all Jon had ever truly wanted, in his heart of hearts, things he’d whispered to Robb when they were still young enough to share a bed, was someone to love deeply, who loved him deeply in return, and a family of his own someday.

The brotherhood of the Night’s Watch seemed a poor substitute for that longing.

Robb undid the top couple buttons of his jerkin and doublet, and bared his neck so Jon could get the best view of it. He could still feel the mark, the stretch of the freshly split skin and a light pulse that matched his own but seemed different somehow. Other to his own heartbeat.

“It was… wonderful. It felt like a sacred thing. Of course it hurt to be bitten to blood, but the rush of connection. It’s like your whole world narrows and expands at once, and this divine being becomes its centre, becomes your centre. I have never- It was everything, Jon. Everything.”

Jon had lifted a hand to hover over the mark, but he didn’t touch it, nor did Robb offer, not wanting to push him too far. His expression had closed slightly but there was a wistful, far look in his eyes as he stared his fill. He took a long breath and then resolutely redid Robb’s buttons for him.

“That sounds nice,” Jon’s voice was gruff. He cleared his throat and looked away. Robb rest a comforting hand on Jon’s shoulder and the young man leaned into it briefly. He turned back after a few moments with a slight smile once more. “The Crown Prince though? Really?”

They laughed together. Robb ran a hand down his cleanshaven chin in incredulity.

“I know, how could this even happen? It is madness. I’m surprised I have not been run through by the Kingsguard by now.”

Jon sobered. “What is to happen?”

“We are to wed the day after tomorrow.”

Jon blinked. “You will be king someday.”

“King Consort,” Robb corrected.

“Beats being dead. My brother, the King Consort,” Jon shook his head, grin so wide again. Robb chuckled and pulled him tight for a hug.

“And mine the Lord Commander of the Night's Watch. What a pair we are.”

When they pulled back, Jon was still smiling and Robb was glad not to have said the wrong thing.

“What has been happening while I was occupied otherwise?”

His brother’s expression fell. Jon turned towards the castle scanning the courtyard and visible windows, Robb worriedly doing the same but watching Jon out the corner of his eye.

“What? What’s wrong?”

Biting his lip and with fists clenched at his sides, Jon met his eye. “Theon’s missing.”

“Missing! Missing how?!”

“I don’t know. No one has really noticed in the quick of everything. What with you and the Crown Prince, the King’s hunt, and all the new faces from the royal party scurrying about. I only realised on the third day you were gone, the day after we got back from the hunt and heard the commotion. He was not at breakfast. I thought he was sulking that he didn’t have your company for over a day – you know how he is- but when he did not come down the day after either, I went looking for him.

“He was nowhere. Not his room, the springs, the kitchens. Not in any of the rooms or halls or corridors either. I had Ghost staying in his room for if he comes back while I am out searching, but no luck. I went down to Wintertown this morning and he wasn’t there either. I talked to Ros.” At this, Jon’s cheeks pinked and his eyes were off again. “She has not seen him either since a sennight ago, before the royal family arrived. I did not tell father. He has been busy and… well. Do you have any idea where he might be, Robb? Any at all?”

Robb’s mind skittered through the possibilities. Theon had seemed fine recently. He’d told his usual bawdy jokes, teased the Stark children ceaselessly while keeping an eye on them in good measure. He had been excited at a chance to show off his best clothes, embroidered with krakens and waves, during all the festivities. Why would he have gone? Was he taken against his will?

He remembered Theon’s expression when Robb had waved them off for the hunt, reluctant to part. His friend had looked back over his shoulder as they rode away, nearly out of sight, just a small smudge from Robb’s window. He wondered what he had been thinking.

“I don’t know, Jon. I would have checked the same spots you have. I did not see him in the godswood and Grey Wind would have hounded him back if he had come across him on his ventures.” Jon’s brow was furrowing further, and Robb felt guilty he couldn’t be more helpful. “Tell you what, let’s split up and do another search of the castle before dinner, maybe you just need fresh eyes on this. I am sure he will turn up eventually. If not, I suppose we shall have to inform father to send a search party.”

Jon scuffed his boots on the stone. “I just- I don’t want Theon to get in trouble. Not while the King is staying anyhow. I just thought… that’s the man that had his brothers killed, you know? He ordered father to take him from his home. I had forgotten, if I hadn’t caught his face during the arrival. I have no like for Theon, but I don’t want him to die.”

Robb clapped Jon on the shoulder, though his own heart beat with fear, stricken. He had forgotten too. They had been so caught up with everything. Theon had seemed so okay about it all. “Hey, none of that. We’ll find him,” he announced determinedly. “We have a couple hours before dusk, and we can saddle horses quietly and search in the night if we must, once all are abed. We will find him.”

Notes:

building this bad boy one tiny brick at a time, fellas.
tis about to get dicey

Chapter 7

They combed the whole castle for signs of Theon, be it the man himself or traces of his capture or escape.

No luck.

Jon had gotten hopeful when Robb mentioned the broken tower, as he hadn’t thought to look there in his own searches, but that had been as empty as it always was. The dust was thick from disuse, the only thing out of place were a brief scuffle of footprints in the entrance. A man’s boots and a set of women’s pumps. The patterns they made indicated the couple had entered at the base of the structure. The woman had pushed the man against the wall for a little while, likely kissing, or maybe even fucking Robb added much to Jon’s exasperation, and then they made their way up four steps, hands brushing along the wooden rail, before pausing and turning back in haste. They had retreated out the way they had come after some interruption or distraction and the trail was lost.

The alpha brothers considered if the man had been Theon for a moment, but Robb was pretty confident their Ironborn friend’s feet weren’t quite that big. The lady’s pumps were fancy given the slight imprints of beautiful shapes which must have been carved into the heel, and Theon’s usual conquests weren’t ever highborn enough for that, for fear of offending a lord or lady by stealing their daughter’s virtue.

Jon and Robb went their separate ways through the buildings around the keep. Robb checked the armoury, the crypts, the kennels. He stopped in the tannery on his way past but was hurried out since he’d only given them the rabbit to start the tanning process a few hours prior.

Once they’d exhausted the outer buildings they moved into the keep. Jon volunteered to search through the servants’ corridors, kitchens, laundry and the glass gardens since it was less suspicious for a bastard to skulk around those than the Lord’s heir. Agreeing reluctantly, Robb started on the great halls, bed chambers and solars dotted around the castle.

He went through the few empty guestrooms and snuck looks in the rooms of visiting knights who were out patrolling or drilling before evening meal. To his embarrassment he came across servants moving belongings from some of the nicer guest rooms to elsewhere in the keep and, upon questioning the giggling maids and porters, found out these had become the temporary rooms that the rest of the Royal Family had occupied whilst Robb and Joffrey inhabited the original royal guestrooms. No trace of Theon in any of those either.

When he came up to the section of Winterfell he had spent the majority of his last few days, he hesitated. The Kingslayer, Ser Jaime Lannister was stationed at the entrance to the set of rooms.

Robb’s soon-to-be gooduncle.

Robb’s soon-to-be gooduncle who had been forced to listen to Robb have loud sex with his nephew for three days straight from down the hall.

Mortified, Robb tried to stride towards him down the corridor with confidence. Judging by the slow and unimpressed rise of Ser Jaime’s eyebrow, he was unsuccessful.

“Greetings, Ser Jaime.”

“Greetings, Lord Robb,” the man replied with a curl of mocking amusement.

Robb suppressed a huff and muscled onward through his warring ire and humiliation. “I wished to thank you for guarding the Crown Prince and myself these last days and offer my sincerest apologies that it was even necessary in the first place.”

“I clearly did not do it for you, boy. But do go on.”

“Well I am thankful, nonetheless. More so, even, that you would protect him so well. And I am sorry that I failed your nephew by succumbing to temptation and returning the bond during our passions. I have tried to take blame for the wrong I committed, but the Crown Prince will not have it, so I will own up to what I can.

“I should have left your nephew and his scent well alone and not proven the need for your service in defending him from knotheads like me with my thoughtless actions. It is not right that I am not punished for this just because the King has fanciful notions of a love reborn that he should have let go long before. You more than any have been made to bear witness to my mistakes, and I apologise at the injustice.”

The Kingslayer rest a hand on the pommel of his sword and shifted his weight in annoyance, armour rustling. Robb refused to flinch, only straightened his back so he might be slain standing tall. Ser Jaime just rolled his eyes.

“You Stark’s and your damn honour and goodwill,” he muttered. “Say no more of it, for both our sanity. Who’s to say this whole blasted affair is not also partly my fault for being distracted when Joffrey apparently needed me? Or the Hound’s fault for lazing off on duty and buggering off who knows where? Cersei for not warning us the boy was having his first heat instead of a mild cold? The blame is shared between all. There is no undoing this. Only putting up with the consequences and moving on with our lives.” He looked down at Robb with stern contempt and a burning in his eyes like the heart of a flame which reminded Robb so much of Joffrey’s. “I will not hear any more apologies from you, Robb Stark. You treat my nephew right. Be a good alpha to him. Make him an honest man, or so help this kingdom he will come to inherit. If you do not, or you hurt him in any way… well, I have killed a King before, what is a King Consort to that.”

For the first time since everything had happened, Robb felt the tight twist of guilt in his soul unfurl ever so slightly. He smiled and relaxed.

“Very well, Ser. You have my word.”

Jaime Lannister looked too tired to be baffled. He just sighed like he carried the world about his shoulders instead of his gold Kingsguard cloak.

“Is there anything else I can help you with, Stark?”

“Yes, my father’s ward, Lord Greyjoy; have you seen him around today, or any day prior since the hunting party returned?”

“The hostage? Cannot say I have, what with being posted here in all my waking hours. What was the boy’s first name again?”

“Theon,” Robb supplied, eager for even the barest hint of a clue at this point.

Ser Jaime thought for a moment idly.

“Theon… that rings a bell… Your sister, the Lady Sansa. She stopped by a day ago with her friend, the steward’s daughter, while you and Joffrey were sleeping thankfully. She wanted to wish you both good health and know how you were recovering from your ailments. I said that you were sleeping it off together to stop contagion and she thanked me and left. I heard her whisper to her friend as they left, something about how Theon wouldn’t be pleased, whatever that meant. Does that help any to you?”

Robb frowned. Not really, it only added more questions. What in Westeros did Sansa have to do with all this? “That is as good a lead as any. Thank you, Ser Jaime, for your time.”

It was getting towards time for the evening feast where Robb’s betrothal would be officially announced. Sansa would be in her room by now getting ready for the meal, ensuring her Southron braids weren’t askew from the day’s wear and changing dresses if she had creased it or found minor imperfections.

Striding quickly to the Stark rooms, Robb was surprised to knock into someone running the other direction on the final corner. They both nearly fell, but Robb just about managed to get a grip on their velvet covered forearms and heave them upright before it turned disastrous.

The harried face of his sister came into view as he let her go. Small strands of hair were coming loose around her, and she was out of breath from her sprint. This would not have been out of the ordinary had this been Arya hurtling through the corridors.

“Sansa?”

“Oh Robb! I was just looking for you! Quickly!”

She grabbed the cuff of his sleeve and began to drag him back down the way she had come insistently. She was surprisingly strong for a girl of three and ten who did nothing but read and sew all day.

“Sansa, are you alright? Whatever’s wrong?” Robb stumbled along behind her. Oddly, she beamed at him, breathless, over her shoulder. There were the beginnings of purple smudges beneath both of her eyes from tiredness and a blotch of ink pinched at her earlobe, where she often worried the skin when stressed, much to the disapproval of Septa Mordane.

“I tried to find you earlier, as soon as I heard you were well again. It’s a marvellous idea. Truly brilliant. We found it in one of Maester Luwin’s scrolls from his research during King Robert’s Rebellion. Everything is ready. He stopped taking the herb. But we need you to do your part now, you know? Before the feast ruins it all. Oh, isn’t it wonderful! Ever so romantic- I cannot believe-!”

They had reached Sansa’s door in no time. She reached up and brushed dust and snow from Robb’s shoulders, before arranging his curls around his face with a determined pout that looked too much like their mother’s for comfort.

Robb didn’t know what else to do but stare in stupor, for what is one to do when their sister goes mad and talks in riddles?

Sansa smiled joyfully up at him.

“I am sure it will not hurt as terribly as the scroll said.”

And then she shoved him back wards through the door and closed it soundly behind her, key turning in the lock moments later.

What in the everloving- ?

“Robb.”

Robb turned slowly to the familiar voice.

Chapter 8

Notes:

come get y'all food
sorry i've been an absent father

Theon Greyjoy stood by the flickering fireplace in Sansa’s room, absently wringing his hands together while offering Robb a thin-lipped smile.

“Hey.”

Robb’s brain skipped.

“Hey?” He blinked slowly.

Theon just kind of rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet. He was barefoot, toes scrunched against the fire warmed stones of the wide hearth. Theon was indecently dressed in just a pair of short breeches and a worn woollen undershirt usually reserved for sleeping. His hair was a mess from pulling fingers through it desperately and then attempting, unsuccessfully, to tame it back into place.

Something was very off in the air about him.

Robb opened his mouth to talk, but nothing came out at first. He gestured around the room. Sansa’s room.

“Have you been here, this whole time? Jon’s been practically sleepless searching for you the last couple days to stop you getting in trouble, and you were just here all along?”

His friend frowned slightly and Robb scoffed. Of course, he wouldn’t have thought about Jon, or any other consequence for that matter.

Marching up to Theon, Robb grabbed a handful of his shirt and shook him. Theon’s limbs wobbled like tall grasses in the wind. He smelt of nothing, which, while odd even among betas, was not unusual for Theon.

“In Sansa’s chamber?? Unchaperoned and in your night clothes, Theon?? If you were not my best friend and I knew you even a smidgen less to think you had taken advantage of my sister, I would run you through. If ANYONE else had found you here instead of me, you would be a dead man. So whatever the hell this is, you better explain it to me, and quickly.”

Theon’s hands came up shakily and he lightly wrapped them around Robb’s, easing his tight hold on the fabric, and lacing their fingers together. Robb let it happen. His friend did not often seek comfort, in any way shape or form, far more likely to belittle it. Whatever he was going through must be serious and his strange behaviours of late worried Robb greatly.

“I heard about your- I heard about what happened.” His voice was hoarse and a little reedy. Not from disuse, but rather overuse, like Theon had spent much of the last few days talking and talking and talking. Sansa had been seen up and around the castle during some of those days, so had this plague upon Theon’s mind caused him to start talking to himself? He waited for Theon who swallowed thickly before continuing.

“I just- I had always thought that it would be different. I waited. I thought we had time, and I waited, like a fool. But it’s dangerous. And I was scared.” Here Theon rolled his eyes at himself, before focusing down on their hands again, face stubbornly impassive. The hearth-light licked at his brow and cast shadows across the rest of him. He was talking nonsense. “It’s not like here, on the Iron Islands. They don’t like omegas, not even the female ones that well. I presented so early. Unnatural they would have called me and they’d have sent me for the Drowned God to bitch in his Halls like those in the stories they told.

“I was just glad it happened while visiting my uncle Rodrik. He’s a beta but he understood. He knew what to give me to cover it up and told me how to find it all over Westeros. Just in case, he said. And then your father took me North later that year. I was so glad that it grows here yaknow, even in such cold. I was worried they’d marry me off if anyone knew, like a trophy to spite my father. But then I also hoped the Stark’s might keep me in the family. How pathetic is that? A hostage wanting to join his captors. But the risk was too high… And now!”

Theon squeezed Robb’s hands and suddenly then in a whirl of motion he stormed away to pace. Fingers worked through his fringe and Robb could see loose strands dance to the ground, almost silvered by the flickering flame, while his other hand swung wide with his words. Theon was so visibly agitated, but this was different to the other times he complained of pettier problems.

This was all so bizarre. An omega? Theon couldn’t be an omega, surely? He was a beta for as long as Robb had known him. He always smelt of nothing. He smelt of nothing now. Just the same.

“Now I’m too late, apparently. Or am I? Sansa caught me moping in the library. You know what she’s like, she only had to glance at me once to determine I looked like a character from one of her star-crossed tragedies, and wheedle the whole sorry tale out of me. She overheard your father and the maester speaking and then snuck several scrolls one by one for us to look through, find a way to break the bond and-“

“Break the bond?” Robb managed to chip in, mind wheeling.

Theon’s eyes, darted up, frantic. “Well, of course. We thought you might be too honour bound to even think of breaking it, but only because there did not seem to be any other option than to wed that blond git. You were saying just the other day after the arrival that he looked like a spoilt prat with a mean streak, not worthy of Sansa’s hand at all. And why should he be worthy of your hand either?”

“Theon,” Robb sounded out slowly. “There is no other option.”

“That’s what I am trying to tell you, Robb, there is! You can mate me instead.” There was a silence, a damningly long silence, before Theon steamed on, words so fast Robb could barely keep up. “Some forms of bond breaking only work if the unwanted one has been fresh, and you immediately bond with another omega to displace the binding. It works better if the new omega is in heat, hence why I have stopped taking the suppressant herbs and been taking ones to encourage my cycle to come on.”

He flushed briefly in embarrassment but otherwise remained remarkably pale. He was shaking from nerves.

“It will start soon now, I am certain. It should have started this morning, but any moment now… any moment now.”

Robb walked over to the hearth, ran a hand down his face and groaned into it. This was too much; he should have known the chaos was not over. Would it ever be? “Why would you do this to yourself Theon? This is unbelievably dangerous. I want to say I do not believe you, but this is absolutely something you would do. We need to get you somewhere safe or put beta guards on the door and rehouse Sansa for a few days. Just- why would you do this?”

Theon was stood tense with his hand fisted around the bedpost now, leaning on it heavily. If his heat was approaching, he would need to lie down soon. Robb couldn’t smell anything strange, but he did not know much of the effects of suppressant herbs other than-

“Because I love you. You have made life here worth living even with the circumstances that brought me to you. We could be happy together. I promise, Robb.”

“Oh Theon,” Robb sighed heavily, and Theon’s shoulders hunched high just from the sound of it. “We are happy together and I do love you, but as friends, Theon. As brothers.”

He took a step towards the Ironborn and Theon only cringed slightly from his touch as he lay gentle palms over each of his biceps. The fabric of Theon’s nightshirt was threadbare and dry beneath his fingers. The air around them smelt of nothing but Robb’s own subtle, cold wind and woodsy scent that blended in with the fire and furniture, the smells of Winterfell.

“I’m sorry, Theon, that I cannot love you the way you wish me to. I have made my bed with Joffrey, so to speak, and now must lie in it. But you will always be my best friend, I promise you that. Omega, beta, alpha, whatever you are does not, and will not, change that fact. Take a breath please.”

Air hissed through Theon’s clenched teeth, shakily. Rejection could cut even the most emotionally inept of alphas to ribbons, but Robb knew Theon was strong. His friend had been through a lot in this life, more than Robb had paid attention to. He would make sure to keep a closer eye on Theon’s hurts in future, to be there for him when he needed the comfort of a friend. He would need him now.

Theon quirked a weak smile at Robb, wavering, but there, nonetheless. Robb hated to tear that down, but he needed to be honest with Theon. There could be no more secrets between them.

“Theon, it pains me to tell you this, but… I don’t think your heat is coming.”

Theon’s knees wavered and Robb manoeuvred them around so he could sit them both down on Sansa’s neatly made bed, side by side. Theon’s eyes were wide on Robb, and his voice small.

“I have stopped taking the herb. They say it comes on quickly after that.”

“How long have you been taking the herbs though?”

“T-ten years.”

“That’s an awfully long time, Theon.”

“No.”

“And I assume you would not have gone off them in that time, for scheduled heats, because you did not feel safe to. You’d have preferred to be seen as a beta than take time off for supposed ruts and be discovered, am I right?”

Theon wasn’t looking at him anymore. His eyes were getting glassier by the moment and fixed on something unseen in the otherwise empty room.

“Overdosing on suppressant herbs and taking them for extended periods of time without regulating your cycle in between can cause infertility, Theon. You might not be able to have heats anymore altogether. Theon. You- you might be barren.”

That seemed to be the final straw.

Theon curled over himself and howled. It was a broken, animal thing and Robb felt tears wet his own eyes to hear his friend suffer so. He wrapped his arms tight around him and let Theon collapse into his chest burrowing his sobs into Robb’s jerkin.

Robb buried his nose into the crown of Theon’s head and smelt nothing.

He could say no more, just rock Theon back and forth to sooth him. In the span of a few days, his friend had felt fear, hope, love, rejection and despair in a roving cycle. He wondered if Theon had put much thought into having children before. He did not want to assume the dreams and wishes of omegas, but even if they did not particularly want children, to have such a possibility ripped away before you could even make the decision for yourself… it was probably devastating.

Selfishly, Robb’s mind slipped to Joffrey. His mate may already be with child. The image of a child that shared their features was already hazily present in Robb’s mind, and his heart hollowed in his chest at the thought of that never existing. It would not be the end of the world if they could not conceive a child, Joffrey had siblings to continue the line, but Robb couldn’t stop the yearning in his soul for children of their own to raise.

He squeezed Theon tighter to him.

That, unfortunately, was how the Crown Prince found them moments later, with a set of Lannister guards and a stressed, guilty looking Sansa Stark in tow.

Notes:

uni has been super busy with deadlines and my arthritis has been poppin lately, so sorry for the lack of uploads
i can't promise frequent updates but i do love writing this story, so will keep going from my snail shell
thank you everyone who's sticking around, we just chilling here and i love you all :D

Chapter 9

Notes:

Thank you all for your continued comments and patience with this fic. It really means a lot to me!! <3
I was debating even coming back to this because uni and life have been kicking my ass, but everytime I had doubts, I would get a new notification of a comment or something, and just be so happy that you all are enjoying it so far.
Hope you like this new chapter xx

“Joffrey, wait! please!”

Why was Robb always chasing after his mate in some way or another?

He hurried down the hall, not quite at a jog but he had to put a slight skip into his step to keep up with Joffrey’s furious stride. Robb couldn’t even identify the smell coming off his bonded anymore. Gusting winds of anger rippled the air in his wake. It went beyond senses and just left a deep, dark pit in Robb’s gut, bottomless and hollow at his mate’s overwhelming wrath and disappointment.

Since moments before when Joffrey first laid eyes on the scene in Sansa’s bedroom, taken one thorough look around the room at large, and upon seeing the desk had ordered the guards to escort Theon into the bowels of Winterfell to await trial before storming off, his mate had not looked at Robb directly even once. His eyes had passed through the space Robb took up and his face had not moved a muscle. His back was straight and the coronet he wore along with his fine robes, likely put on for the betrothal feast, made him look so regal in the firelight. Powerful but not quite present, like a statue rooted in times gone by.

Despite this façade, the whirling aura around him begot his true feelings.

“Theon did not mean any harm; he was upset! You can’t possibly keep him in the dungeons. He has not done anything wro-”

Robb reared back when Joffrey was suddenly up close in his face, face ruddy with rage. The whites of his eyes were starkly visible, streaked with small branching red veins and Robb felt his blood freeze at the sight. So different to his previous composure. A sharp jab to Robb’s chest and a pointed finger suddenly entered his vision.

“You are lucky YOU are not in the dungeons, you swine! I find you – alone – in a bed chamber with an unmated omega.” Spittle flew from Joffrey’s mouth. A drop landed on Robb’s lip and without thinking his tongue darted out to catch it. The corner of Joffrey’s eye twitched. His hands flicked out before him, continuing his tirade. “Heat inducing herbs left on the desk with notes on separating a newly bonded pair in highborn cursive. That whore in his smallclothes. On the bed. With you. And you want me to, what? Let it go?”

The Crown Prince tipped his head back and laughed. It reminded Robb of passing the blacksmith while the whetstone was rolling, high and grating like Joffrey’s throat was full of metal and rock.

“It wasn’t like that! You know it wasn’t.”

“Do I?! Do I know anything about you? How can I possibly know? Has this been going on before I got here? Am I the other omega to your fucking star-crossed love ballad with your own hostage?” His voice had started loud but was just a hiss by the last question. Robb was already shaking his head.

“No, no, you know me in this, I promise. I am not and never have been and never will be with Theon. He is my friend, and no more than that. You could smell it on him, surely! You know my scent by now. Was it on him as strongly as it’s been on you these last days? No. Just a little from the light contact. He needed a hug!” Robb dropped to a whisper, eyes darting about to check their surroundings were still empty bar the flickering torches in sconces along the wall. “And you will have noticed he doesn’t smell of anything beneath that. He just found out the suppressants he is on have made him barren and he is quite torn up over it. He needed me. He is my friend,” he repeated, desperately.

Joffrey scoffed and another dig at Robb’s sternum rocked him. “Oh that makes me feel so much better that you cannot knock him up. Just because you have not fucked him since I have been here does not mean you never have, and now I know there would not be little bastards running around to prove anything. That shows absolutely nothing.”

Robb raised his hands shakily to cup Joffrey’s forearms, biceps, elbows – anything – but Joffrey batted him away. Having seen how violent Joffrey had the potential to be, he was surprised by how lightly he was pushed away. He noticed a distinct shake in the Crown Prince’s hands.

When he tried again to make contact, laying gentle palms on Joffrey’s hunched shoulders, his mate stiffened, but allowed it.

“I wouldn’t do that to you,” Robb implored. “Family, honour, duty. I may be a Stark, but I am a Tully also. On my honour, I have not dishonoured you, during or prior to our bonding. Please trust me. I didn’t know what they had been planning. You’ve been with me until this morning. I had no time to talk to Theon or Sansa. They thought this bonding was against my will, so they endeavoured to save me from it. One conversation with me would have assured them otherwise. It was just a miscommunication.”

Joffrey shuffled awkwardly and avoided his eyes, getting far away and sullen again. Hate wasn’t often an emotion that took hold of Robb, but by the gods, old and new, he hated this look most. Even a hint that he didn’t exist to Joffrey, that he wouldn’t perceive him, ached in his chest.

“But this was against your will.” The man muttered blankly.

“My will is in it now. Here. With you. As I hope yours is still with me.” He cupped the blond prince’s face and pet his thumb delicately at the petalled skin atop his cheekbone. His omega leaned into it minutely, and his cold eyes finally sharpened back on Robb. Joffrey sighed out a long breath that fanned pleasantly across Robb’s throat. His scent was cooling out to a genial afternoon, a sunny glade, lemon and honey. Tension still lay in the grasses, but it eased the darkness twisting at Robb’s lungs.

“Very well. You have me.” There was a long pause between them where they just looked. Robb mapped the planes of Joffrey’s face with his eyes and fingers, watched the way his short golden hairs fell neatly across his forehead. Joffrey’s mouth grew pinched. “I’m afraid the issue with Greyjoy might be out of our hands though.”

“What do you mean?”

“The guards are taking him to the dungeons. They will likely report to your lord father but also the king about the compromising situation we found you and Greyjoy in.”

“It was not-“

Joffrey glared.

“It does not matter what it was, but rather what it looked like. Unless you want to reveal Greyjoy’s infertility to the whole court and family, it looks really fucking suspicious. And even if I had given you permission to be there and begged my father to allow your precious friendship with your hostage, that would reflect badly on me and sating my alpha’s needs if you have to seek company of any sort with other omegas, particularly unbound ones.”

Robb rolled his eyes slightly and Joffrey’s expression flared once more in warning. “What is so wrong with-“

“I will not let you around an unmated omega. No matter how platonic you declare your feelings to be. I trust you. I do not trust him. Besides, as you have seen, my father will not listen to me. You know his views of those with my nature. He will hear of the circumstances and make unsavoury assumptions of Greyjoy trying to take you from me before our marriage and our bloody Seven-willed bond settles. Do not think my father has forgotten his contempt for the Iron Islands this last decade. If the squid is not hanged, he will be sold off to whatever greasy knot-headed pillock my father can foist him off onto to make everyone as unhappy as possible.”

They both shuddered at the thought. Robb due to nauseating despair at his friend’s fortuned fate, but he realised Joffrey must have been worrying about his own brief marriage prospects should Robb have not been here for him so quickly. As honoured as omegas were up here in the North, the foul views of the South and the Seven still tainted all their lives, and Robb hated to see it affect those he loved so dearly. Omegas and bastards alike.

Oh.

“Those guards. What were their designation?”

“Only betas have been assigned to me since my heat. Why?”

“Not that it would even matter because Theon doesn’t smell of anything, but even they, as betas, might be unable to identify who he smelled most strongly of. Betas guard the dungeons here as well.”

Joffrey pulled back from him, frowning in confusion. “The fuck are you on about?”

Robb did not like to let himself hope. He liked to think he was a realist. Okay, an optimistic realist. But an idea was taking fine form in his mind. He hurried after Joffrey’s mild retreat, clasping his hands in his firmly to give an excited, reassuring squeeze.

“Theon does not smell of anything. Bonded or unbonded. No one has seen him for days. What is to say he has not found his own partner while we were enjoying your heat bed?”

“My well-crafted nest, you cunt. But yes… That could work. None but us would be able to tell. The firelight was also dim,” his mate said slowly, nodding to himself as the pieces slotted together. “Too dark to tell if there was a mating bite on his throat amidst the collar of his sleep shirt. But who do you trust to-“

Footsteps marching hurriedly down the corridor behind them. Just one set.

“Robb! There you are. I found Theon, but he’s- Oh! Oh, your grace.”

Jon skittered to a stop and jolted forward into a hasty bow. Robb turned to face him fully, draping an arm around Joffrey’s shoulder as he did so, to draw them together as an equal front. The man beside him shifted uncomfortably but fisted a hand into the fabric at the base of Robb’s spine, anchoring him close in return.

“Snow.” Joffrey uttered with thinly veiled disdain.

Robb huffed, good-naturedly. “Brother, meet your soon to be goodbrother, Prince Joffrey, and Joffrey, this is my beloved brother, Jon, who will soon be your goodbrother also. You and the rest of court will not have met or seen him this past week or so. He is very good at hiding in the shadows and has been most distraught at Theon’s recent disappearance, staying for the most part unseen to try and discover his whereabouts.”

Jon’s eyes were wavering back and forth between the Crown Prince and the eldest Stark child rapidly. He looked uncertain, worried he had interrupted something no doubt, but also dubious of Robb’s intentions. They had played so much and gotten into so many schemes as children with Theon, that Robb was certain he could tell by the look on Robb’s face alone when a new conspiracy was afoot. Jon had usually been the one attempting to talk them out of their mischief back then, but Robb dearly hoped he had read this right, and that his brother would be onboard with this plan.

“That’s what I wanted to speak to you about,” Jon pressed on. “Theon was being escorted to the dungeons, by heavy guard. He seemed numb to what was happening around him. I could not catch his eye. Do you know what has happened? How do we help him?”

Joffrey tugged at Robb’s decorative jerkin where he pulled it tight behind him, until he looked down. He had that assessing look again, but it shined with pleasure, like Robb had been judged and judged favourably at that. A small token of his mate’s affection was bestowed with an uptilt of his mouth.

“You may be oblivious to a lot, but you are really quite clever when it counts, you know.”

He pressed those sweet lips to the underside of Robb’s chin carefully, before turning back to a beet red Jon.

Robb sighed, somewhat dreamily, before clearing his throat, embarrassed at his reaction. Just the person he wanted to have more arrow bolts against him. Robb faced his brother.

“We have an idea to rescue Theon, but we need your help brother. If you are amenable to a change of your plans, you might not be joining the Night’s Watch after all.”

Notes:

Again, no promises on a schedule, but this fic is all starting to come together in my head so I'm hyped to write more at some point!!