14Disclaimer: I recently got obsessed with Game of Thrones, but doesn't mean I own it!
Story: Roose Bolton realized his bastard son had gotten the better prize. But Sansa Stark was wasted on him and perhaps Roose was greedy enough to take her for himself. Sansa? Sansa is a survivor and she knows the father is better than the son.
Set as a canon AU divergence.
Spoilers: Yeeeessss. Yes, yes, yes. Beware?
Warnings: It's GoT, what do you think? And Ramsay is His Own Warning. (Hell, the Boltons are their own warning XD)
Pairings: Roosa (Roose Bolton/Sansa Stark)
A Red King Bowed
Chapter One: So Many Keys to These Doors
Roose Bolton was a man who would do what he needed to achieve results. "A Peaceful Land, A Quiet People" was what he wanted to adhere to and he had thought he'd been able to do that.
The resistance, though not overt, against his current reign as Warden of the North was expected but not to this extent.
He felt older than he was —hair graying faster than he could blink his eyes. His body, though he refused to think much less admit it, was aching more and more, and the stress of it all hampered his ability to think and scheme as he was used to.
He had thought by having his bastard marry the Stark girl, he would be more accepted and his rule become smoother and firmly in place. How wrong he'd been —if anything, it had simply made things more hostile against him.
He wasn't unaware of the strong lingering Stark loyalty, but he had yet to ferret them out.
But…
Speaking on the marriage of his bastard and Sansa Stark, he felt another type of frustration in him. Anger even.
That damned bastard of his —nothing Roose had imparted on him stayed. He had told him the girl was precious. She was considered the Jewel of the North, a beauty he had no trouble admiring and admitting to.
It galled him, the thought of it. He wasn't unaware that his bastard had gotten the better prize. The Key to the North as Tywin Lannister persisted in calling her before his death, and her importance in the scheme of things was only compounded by the utter, devastating beauty she'd been blessed with.
And his idiot bastard abused and treated her like trash.
She was wasted on Ramsay. Though Roose had done what Robb Stark could not, stuck to his word and married a Frey (and managed to squeeze a generous amount of coinage in the process), he wasn't a blind man.
He had been satisfied with the arrangement and Walda Frey had earned him what he needed and wanted out of it. He hadn't even minded bedding the girl, if only because her reactions to him and his ministrations were pleasing to him and he'd even grown fond of her because of that.
But Lady Sansa was entrancing.
There was just something about her that pulled him in like nothing else, and that his bastard was able to have her grated on him. More so when he knew that Ramsay did not treat the Lady as she deserved.
As he would have treated her, if he'd been her husband.
But…then again, Roose was greedy enough that he would —could still take her for himself.
~⸹⸹⸹~
His steps seemed to echo loudly as he walked towards his destination. He didn't particularly wanted anyone to know where he was going, but he wasn't hiding it either.
Part of him didn't care if Ramsay knew. The other part wanted the discretion, if only to spare any retaliation on the young woman he was visiting upon. Although, he was sure that Ramsay had already left her rooms.
It was just as well though, that he ran across one of the handmaids assigned to Lady Sansa. She looked to be carrying items that would be used for a bath and he intercepted her.
"You there," he grabbed her attention, causing the girl to frighten and look at him terrified. "Are those for Lady Sansa?"
"Y-yes, milord," she stuttered.
"Hand them over," he ordered and dismissed her quickly after.
He continued his way then, deciding he'd received a perfect opportunity. Not wasting time, he reached Lady Sansa's door and easily made his way in, seeking her out. To his luck, it wasn't hard to find her —she was already in the prepared bath, alone and bare to his eyes.
She was even more beautiful, despite her curled up figure. Her long curtain of fiery hair looked like burnished copper, darkened from the water and highlighted by the light of the fires burning near the tub. Her porcelain skin gleamed from water droplets and the urge to touch her was stronger than ever.
He moved closer when he heard her sigh, kneeling behind her and soaking the cloth into the water.
"Mary, would you be even more careful?" she asked quietly. "I fear after tonight, my skin is just a little too sore for a scrub."
His lips tightened at that and he gently moved her hair out of the way. But the brush of his fingers caused her to jolt and lean away, whipping her head towards him lightning-quick. Her eyes grew large at the sight of him.
"L-Lord Bolton!"
She practically scrambled away in the tub, not moving much at all aside from clinging to the other side of the tub opposite him and leaning away. His eyes briefly caught sight of the slight reddening of the water and his hand snapped out quickly to still her, tightly holding onto her arm.
"Do not move. You are harmed," he murmured, moving his eyes from the water to her face.
Her face shuttered and she looked away from him. Again gently, he pulled her closer to him and held her still there.
"Turn around," he commanded and she tensed before doing so. He moved to push her hair away again, pausing at the sight of her back. Scars littered it, too old to be at the hands of his bastard. "Who did this to you?" he hissed, tracing a scar with the pads of his fingers.
She didn't answer him, merely flinching away. No matter. He had all the time in the world to question her and needle the answer out of her. He was known for his patience.
Instead, he focused on tending to her skin, wiping the cloth across the whole expanse of her back. Despite (maybe even because to him) of the scars on her back, she seemed even more beautiful to his eyes. A survivor and a fighter.
Even now, in her own way, she resisted Ramsay and him.
"My bastard doesn't appreciate you," he started off softly. "He doesn't see what he has."
She said nothing, but that was fine for him. He could see she was still intently listening.
"A man's touch doesn't have to hurt," he made his voice even softer, instinctively knowing that his bastard wasn't the only man to hurt her. Her scars proved that. "It can be kind."
That coming from him was ironic.
Still, after a gentle swipe of the cloth near her shoulder, he leaned closer and placed his lips there for a few moments.
"I can be kind to you," he whispered against her skin. "My bastard doesn't know how to treat you, but I do. I can make you feel good. I can make sure you learn how a man's touch is supposed to be. I can teach you that it can feel pleasurable."
He smiled to himself. He not only saw but felt her take a shuddering breath, her whole body reacting to him. Her skin began to flush enticingly pink and it was all he had to keep himself from going any further.
Roose reached around her with the cloth, lightly washing her front and feeling the curves of her breasts (halted by her uneven breathing) and sliding down her slim stomach, only to reach the water and keep away from where he most wanted to touch.
"I can be a good man to you."
He pressed his lips to her cheek, lingering to make an impression on her, before leaving the cloth floating in the water and standing up.
"I will return in a sennight, Lady Sansa. Allow me to show you how you should be treated, how you are supposed to be touched. Until then, my Lady."
He made himself leave before he ended up changing his mind and give her very little time to consider his proposal.
~⸹⸹⸹~
His attentions weren't wanted, but they also weren't unwanted. Sansa did not know what to make of Lord Bolton, only that his attentions on her were too intense, too invasive, too heated…
In a way, it was worse than Ramsay because she reacted to Lord Bolton in ways she didn't want to, in ways she was ashamed to.
She hated Ramsay and the way he touched her, abused and tortured her every night. But Lord Bolton made her blood flow, her skin heat, her heart race —it was unbearable how much she reacted to Lord Bolton in a way that made her realize the idea of being wanted by him was intoxicating.
He made her want him in return.
It hurt. Being touched by another man, that was what she had always thought. She always thought, from her time to King's Landing to now with Ramsay, that no man would ever treat her right. That pain and suffering from others would be all that she knew.
Someone brave, gentle and strong.
No, there were no men like that anymore and certainly none around her. She had been surrounded by monsters for most of her life by now, and she knew better than to think otherwise. Even with Lord Bolton's soft spoken, enticing words of a strange kind of gentleness.
But…that his offer was tempting at all said much of her current state.
Ramsay was cruel and sadistic, but Lord Bolton was surprisingly not. Even if his reputation left much to the imagination, what she had known of him so far was at the least…the father was better than the son, and part of her was desperate to know what it would feel like to be touched and not be tortured and be brought to pain for it.
Even if she wouldn't find pleasure in it, she just wanted to know it wouldn't hurt.
Started 1/12/20 – Completed 1/19/20
A/n: Pffft, I don't even know why I'm obsessed with this pairing XD I just am. I blame it for being the reason I got so drawn into and obsessed with Game of Thrones at first. Y'all don't even know. Indulge me? Mwahaha, stick on the crazy ride and remember to review to save my soul XDXDXD
