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Chapter Text

The first thing Sansa noticed about King’s Landing was the heat.

Not the sun on stone—that she’d expected, riding south from Winterfell, layer after layer of fur and wool peeled off as the air turned thick and wet. This was another kind of heat, a cloying, invisible weight that wrapped around her as the gates boomed shut behind their party: hot horse, furnace-smoke, docks, rotting fish, and under it all the more intimate hum of bodies, of people, of scents.

So many alphas.

She felt them before she saw them, that bright-prickling awareness under her skin. An alpha’s attention was a specific kind of pressure: not quite a hand, not quite a gaze, but a twist in the air that made her want to lower her eyes and bare her throat and run, all at once.

Sansa sat very straight in her saddle, gloved hands on the reins. Her mare snorted and tossed her head as the cheers went up from the crowd; banners snapped; children shouted; women waved scraps of cloth like flowers. The royal escort parted the press, gold cloaks pushing back the tide of hot humanity. It should have felt like triumph. It felt like being pushed into a room and having the door locked from the outside.

“Remember,” her father murmured beside her, voice low enough that only she and perhaps the nearest guards would hear, “you are Lady Sansa Stark of Winterfell. Hold your head high. You owe this city nothing.”

She nodded, because it was expected, because she’d practiced the gesture in the looking glass. Her braids were heavy over her shoulders—a compromise between northern practicality and the southern grace Septa Mordane had insisted upon. She’d dressed carefully: high neck, long sleeves despite the heat, skirts full enough to swirl but thick enough to make any stray gust of wind a trivial matter. The maester’s mixture was still cool on the inside of her wrists, hidden beneath her cuffs. A faint, bitter-green herbal bite sat under the rosewater she’d dabbed on her throat.

It wouldn’t hide what she was, not really. But it might soften it. Blunt the edges.

As they rolled under the shadow of the gatehouse, the press of scents hit her fully. Betas, mostly: salt and leather and clay. A scattering of omegas, sweet and sharp, tucked away in shaded doorways with their heads covered, watching the procession. Alphas like flares in the crowd, bright and hot and hungry, some barely-leashed, some bored, some curious.

Her father’s scent—cold rain on stone, pine resin, iron—stood solid beside her, an anchor in the tide.

Sansa fixed her smile in place and rode into the capital.

Jaime Lannister lounged on the steps of the Iron Throne and wondered how many more fools he’d watch bow and scrape before the day finally ended.

The hall was stifling, even with the doors flung wide to let in the stink of the city. Sunlight fell in heavy bars across the floor, catching the edge of a hundred blades and the gilt trim on courtiers’ sleeves. People rustled and murmured and sweated, a whole court stewing in its own perfume. He’d been standing since dawn, and if not for the sword at his hip and the white cloak on his shoulders, he might have been mistaken for one of the statues lining the walls.

Still, there were amusements, if a man knew where to look.

He tracked the northern party even before they reached the foot of the throne, following the ripple of movement through the crowd. Stark banners, grey on white. Tall men with the set of winter in their shoulders, eyes measuring and reserved. The king had taken on a wistful glow when he’d spoken of his old friend coming south; the queen had gone very still.

Jaime watched the girl.

Daughter, he corrected himself. Eddard Stark’s daughter. The elder, the one they’d betrothed to—

His gaze flicked to the side, where the boy stood.

Joffrey’s posture was perfect: shoulders squared, chin just so, every line drilled into him by years of Cersei’s sharp-eyed corrections. Gold hair, green eyes, that pretty, cruel mouth. A prince painted for the bards.

He did not smell like Jaime.

Oh, there were notes Cersei tried to convince herself were his, things she’d clung to when the boy was small: a flash of steel, a hint of lion’s-mane amber. But beneath the fine oils and the carefully-chosen cloth, Joffrey’s scent was thin, reedy, threaded with a nervous sourness that had never been Jaime’s.

Jaime knew his own line. He knew what his scent would do, mixed with Cersei’s; he knew what cubs he would have made.

He also knew what Lancel smelled like.

The boy-cousin stood a step behind the queen’s chair, as he often did now. Fidgeting, eager, eyes flicking to Cersei too often, as if he needed her approval just to breathe.

Sweat and cheap wine and a particular sharp green note that caught in the back of Jaime’s throat.

He’d first put it together when Joffrey turned thirteen. Some instinct had hoped, absurdly, that the boy would change, that some deep shared core would make itself known. Instead, Joffrey’s scent only sharpened into more of the same: fretful acid over old woodsmoke and a fret of something that matched Lancel more than it matched Jaime.

Jaime had gone out to the yard and beaten three men in the practice ring until his arm shook, then lain awake all night with Cersei’s hair spread across his chest and his nose full of her, thinking: I am a lot of things, but not that boy’s father.

It changed very little. Except how he watched Joffrey. Except how he told himself, when the boy’s cruelty surfaced, that it wasn’t his blood.

Except that when his eyes slid from Joffrey now to the Stark girl riding into the hall, some vicious, treasonous part of him thought: better she know the truth about what she’s promised to, before she finds herself under him.

He shifted his weight, hand resting light on the hilt at his hip, and let his attention settle.

She was pretty, as Cersei had said with thin-lipped disdain, but not the cloying kind of pretty the south adored. There was northern steel in the set of her jaw, in the way she kept her hands exactly so on the reins, despite the weight of a hundred eyes. Her hair was a waterfall of auburn, braided and looped, catching the light like new copper.

And she smelled—

His nostrils flared, just slightly, taking in the air as her mare clopped onto the rushes.

Omega, bright and unmistakable. Young, but fully bloomed, the sweeter notes of her scent tempered by something winter-cool and sharp, like frost on fruit. He caught rosewater first—someone had doused her in it—but underneath, there was her: sun-warmed wool and snowmelt and the first bite into a ripe apple.

Unbonded, he registered with an jolt of almost professional interest. No overlapping alpha-scent. No fading mark at her throat.

The ripple went through the court like a physical thing. Every alpha in the room felt it, whether they knew what they were feeling or not. Heads tilted; backs straightened; conversations faltered and then picked up again with forced nonchalance.

Robert laughed, great booming thing that he was, clapping his hands as if his old friend had brought him a fine hunting dog as a gift. “Ned!” he roared. “You’ve brought the whole frozen bloody north with you!”

Ned Stark dismounted, knees bending with a stiffness that spoke of long rides and old injuries. He came to kneel before the throne. There was pride in him, but it was buried deep; on the surface, he smelled of duty and the wariness of a man who’s walked into an enemy’s hall with his family at his back.

“Your Grace,” he said, his voice like gravel.

His daughter dismounted with careful grace. One of the guards moved as if to assist; she was already down, skirts swishing around her ankles, eyes lowered but not quite soft. She curtsied, the picture of courtesy.

“Your Grace.” Her voice was clear, carrying easily, shaped by the Septa’s polish yet still touched by the more rounded vowels of the North.

Jaime watched the way Joffrey’s nostrils flared, the way his pupils widened. The prince’s tongue darted over his lips before he smoothed his face into polite disinterest.

Lancel swallowed hard behind the queen.

Cersei’s hand tightened on the arm of her chair.

Jaime smiled, slow and private.

The wolf had teeth.

Sansa had been prepared, or so she’d thought, for the throne room.

She’d heard the stories, from Septa Mordane and the minstrels and her own brothers. The Iron Throne, made from the swords of Aegon’s enemies, sharp enough to cut the unwary. The dragons that had once filled the hall with smoke and fire. The king who sat the throne now, her father’s oldest friend, her betrothed’s father.

None of them had told her how small it would make her feel.

The hall soared above her, too high, banners hanging like still water. The Iron Throne glowered at the far end, a horrible, beautiful mess of jagged metal that looked as if it had grown there when the castle was built. The king sprawled upon it like a man in a too-small chair, his crown slightly askew, his beard gone to seed. Guards in gold cloaks lined the walls; knights of the Kingsguard gleamed like pale ghosts at the foot of the steps.

Heat pressed down; the scent of old rushes and older sweat clung to the stones.

Her father knelt. Sansa curtsied beside him, every movement smooth from practice. She kept her eyes down, as decorum demanded, but she couldn’t help the flicker upward.

King Robert Baratheon. The man who had won the throne in a blaze of war. He looked… tired. His scent, even at this distance, was heavy and stale, beer and grease and a faint echo of something storm-bright that she thought might once have been an alpha’s strong, clean strength. Now it just smelled… dulled.

“Rise, Ned,” the king said. “Gods, you’re a sight. You look like hell.” He laughed again as Stark stood, then glanced to Sansa. “And this is the little girl you’ve been hiding in the snow. Not so little anymore, eh?” His eyes roved over her in a way that made her want to fold in on herself, but she held steady. “The prince is a lucky boy.”

Lucky boy. Her cheeks warmed.

She could feel Joffrey’s gaze on her, too, a more focused heat than his father’s. She did not look at him yet. She knew what she would see; she’d seen him before, on the road. Golden, beautiful, every inch a prince from the songs. His scent, even in her memory, was thinly sweet, like sugared wine left too long.

Not like—

Her attention snagged on white and gold.

The knight standing just below the throne was not tall enough to dwarf the others, but he might as well have for the way the space bent around him. His armor shone like something out of the tales, mirror-bright; his white cloak fell in perfect, uncreased folds. His hair was pale as the metal, cut to fall around his face just so. His mouth was curved in a faint, amused line that was not quite a smile.

Kingsguard, she thought. The Kingslayer.

Jaime Lannister.

Her breath hitched, almost imperceptibly. His scent reached her a second later and did something strange to her lungs.

He smelled… wrong, for a Lannister. She’d expected heavy, cloying gold, lion musk and old coin. Cersei was every bit the queen in that, her perfume a rich, thick sweetness that wrapped around her and made the air feel syrupy. Tyrion, when she’d met him on the road, had smelled of ink and wine and something sharp and clever under the surface.

Jaime smelled like steel left in the rain, like oiled leather and crushed pine needles, with a low undercurrent of something darker, like the shadows between rafters. There was Lannister warmth in him, yes, but it was banked under a hard, clean edge.

Omega instincts pricked at her like needles. Dangerous, they whispered. Dangerous, stay away, dangerous. But wrapped around it, almost as strong, was a sense of steadiness, of something solid she could lean against. She didn’t understand that part at all.

She made herself look away. Fixed her eyes somewhere around the king’s belt buckle and let the audience wash over her.

Names. Titles. Old grievances and older alliances.

Lord Stark named as Hand of the King, to the applause of the gathered court. The queen’s smile, tight and cool, sliding over her father like a knife. The prince stepping forward to bow with precise grace, his hand outstretched in courtly welcome.

Sansa curtsied again as she had been taught, placing her hand in Joffrey’s for the brief moment required. His palm was warm and dry; his fingers closed a shade too tightly around hers, as if he were staking a claim. His scent, up close, was even thinner, the nervous note stronger. There was a little hitch in it she recognized, the way it sharpened around the edges of his excitement.

He was aroused by the attention. By the idea of owning her.

She smiled anyway. What else could she do?

“You are most welcome in King’s Landing, my lady,” he said, voice pitched to carry. “I hope you will find the south to your liking.”

“I am honored to be here, Your Grace,” she replied. “The city is very… grand.”

He preened.

She might have swayed, just a little, when she straightened from the curtsy. The room tilted; the scents seemed to swirl closer. Too many alphas in one place, too many eyes, too much heat. The maester’s herbs had dulled the sharpest edges of her own scent, but not enough to keep every head from turning just so, not enough to stop that hot-bright awareness from skimming across her skin.

Her father’s hand brushed her elbow, subtle support.

Another presence stepped closer, a shift in the air, and the pressure changed.

The Kingslayer had moved. She hadn’t seen it, but suddenly his scent was nearer, that cold-steel-and-pine cutting through the rest, threading between her and the crowd like a drawn line. He stood not inches from her, but close enough that if she took a step back, her shoulder would brush his breastplate.

“Your Grace,” he said lazily, to the king above, “the hall grows close. Perhaps Lord Stark’s daughter might be shown to her chambers? The north does not often suffer such heat.”

Robert blinked, as if pulled from some reverie. “Aye, aye. God, look at me, keeping the poor girl baking here like a joint on a spit. Go on, Ned, take her. We can argue about taxes later.”

The court chuckled, a little nervously.

Sansa didn’t move until her father did. When she turned, she was suddenly, terribly aware of how close Jaime Lannister was.

He did not look at her directly. His gaze passed over her, impersonal as a blade, then flicked to the crowd, the doors, the exits, measuring threats. For a moment, he smelled like nothing so much as a winter cliff—dangerous if you stepped wrong, but solid underfoot if you knew how to walk it.

He shifted just enough to let her pass without touching him.

She walked, chin high, each step placed carefully on the rushes. Her heart was beating too fast.

Behind her, the court began to talk in earnest.

“They’ll be tearing each other’s faces off by evensong,” Tyrion observed around the rim of his wine cup, watching the hall from the shadow of a pillar.

Varys, beside him, smiled his little half-smile. “My lord Hand and our gracious queen?” he asked mildly. “Or did you mean the alphas, squabbling over the scent of fresh snow?”

Tyrion snorted. “Do you feel it, then? I thought you’d be above such base compulsions.”

“Even a eunuch’s nose works,” Varys replied. “It is hard to miss, is it not? An unbonded highborn omega, straight from the north, promise of alliance in her every breath.”

They both watched as the Stark party withdrew from the hall, guards falling in around them like a wall.

“Robert thinks she’s a gift for his son,” Tyrion said, voice light. “Cersei thinks she’s a threat. The wolves think she’s a hostage. The alphas…” He tilted his head, considering. “The alphas think a great many things.”

“And you, my lord?” Varys asked. “What do you think?”

“I think,” Tyrion said, rolling the wine on his tongue, “that my dear brother was watching her very closely. And I think our cousin Lancel was watching him.”

He caught the way Varys’ eyes flickered. The spider filed away everything.

“Jaime is sworn to the Kingsguard,” Varys murmured. “He cannot marry. He cannot bond.”

Tyrion let his gaze slide to where Jaime had retaken his position by the throne, face the careless blank he wore like another piece of armor. His shoulders were looser now, though, as if the removal of the Stark girl from the hall had given him space to breathe.

“He cannot,” Tyrion agreed. “He will not. He is many things, but he takes his oaths seriously when they are to the things he chooses.”

“And yet.” Varys’ fingers brushed lightly against each other, that soft little sound that always reminded Tyrion of spiders tapping on glass. “A wolf pup in a den of lions. Unbonded. Unclaimed. It is... a dangerous combination.”

Tyrion hummed. “Oh, very,” he said. “I look forward to seeing what it makes of us all.”

The corridor to the guest chambers was blessedly cooler, the stone walls drinking in some of the day’s heat. Sansa walked between her father and two of the Northern guard, the gold cloaks trailing at a respectful distance behind. The crowd noise faded; her head felt clearer with every step she took away from the throne room.

Her hands, inside her gloves, were damp.

Her father did not speak until they reached a small alcove where a narrow window let in a strip of sea breeze. He stopped there and turned, the guards discreetly moving ahead to give them a semblance of privacy.

“Are you well?” he asked, studying her face. There was a line between his brows that hadn’t been there in Winterfell.

“Yes, Father.” Her voice came out steadier than she felt. “It is… overwhelming, but I am well.”

His nostrils flared, just slightly, the way they did when he was scenting the air before a storm. The maester’s herbs were still working, but not well enough to fool a man who’d known her since she was a babe in arms. His shoulders relaxed just a fraction.

“You held yourself with honor,” he said. It was high praise, from him.

Pride curled warm in her chest. “Thank you.”

His hand lifted as if to touch her hair, then dropped. “You saw the prince.”

“Yes.” She kept her face carefully serene. She did not say what she’d sensed. She did not say: he smells like a boy playing at a man. She did not say: he looks at me like I’m something to break.

“He is not his father,” Ned said, as if reading some of it anyway. “You must remember that.”

“I know,” she lied. She had wanted, once, for her prince to be a hero. For her love story to be simple. Those dreams had shriveled a little more with every mile south.

Ned’s hand brushed her shoulder, just once. “We will not linger here longer than we must,” he said. “I will do my duty, and then—”

Footsteps on stone cut him off. Sansa turned, heart leaping to her throat, though she couldn’t have said which she feared more: some courtier, some threat, or the white flash of a Kingsguard cloak.

It was Jaime Lannister.

He came alone, without the usual golden tail of guards and sycophants, his helm tucked under one arm. Without the framing of the throne, he looked… taller, somehow, and more dangerous. Less ornament, more blade.

“Lord Stark,” he said, inclining his head just enough to count as a bow.

“Ser Jaime.” Her father’s voice was flat.

Jaime’s eyes flicked between them. Up close, Sansa could see the fine lines at the corners, the faint shadows under his lashes. He looked tired, but his gaze was sharp.

“I have been commanded,” he said, “to ensure that our honored guests find their quarters without incident. The king is eager, you understand, that no harm come to his Hand’s family.”

Sansa wondered if he knew how insincere that sounded.

“We are capable of finding our own way,” Ned replied. “We have managed to keep ourselves alive on our own for some years now.”

Jaime’s mouth twitched. “I don’t doubt it, my lord. But I’m afraid His Grace’s commands are not suggestions.” His eyes slid briefly to Sansa. “Might I?”

The question wasn’t quite a question. He was asking permission to walk beside her, to put himself close. To line his scent up against hers in the narrower hallways, to let the castle know, in that subtle, visceral way omegas and alphas understood, that she was under protection—even if it was only the protection of a sword sworn to the king.

Ned’s jaw tightened. Sansa could feel the conflict in him as keenly as if it were her own: the northern urge to tell this southern peacock to go to the Others, the father’s wariness, the Hand’s awareness of politics.

He looked at her.

Sansa didn’t know what he was asking her, exactly. Approval? Forgiveness? She only knew that her skin still remembered the way the hall had felt, all those scents closing in, and how the cold-steel smell of Jaime Lannister had cut through it.

“If it pleases His Grace,” she said, folding her hands together. “I would not like to give offense, Father.”

For a heartbeat, Ned looked very old. Then he inclined his head, just once, to Jaime. “Very well. But it is a short walk. I would not keep you from your oaths.”

“Oh, this is my oath,” Jaime said lightly. “To stand between the royal family and danger. And there is quite a lot of danger in these halls.” He fell into step just a little behind Sansa’s left shoulder, not quite beside her—enough that he could draw his sword past her if he had to, she realized. Enough that his presence loomed at the corner of her vision.

The corridor narrowed. Stone pressed close on either side. His scent filled the space between them in slow, deliberate pulses: steel, pine, something older and weary underneath. He was not masking it, not entirely. The herbs she’d used felt suddenly inadequate, her own scent stirring faintly in response, traits tugging at instincts. Her heart picked up.

“You rode well today, my lady,” he said after a moment, voice pitched low enough that it wouldn’t carry far. “Most people from the north fidget and stare when they first come through the gates. You looked as if you’d seen it all before.”

“I have not,” she replied, surprised into honesty. “Winterfell is… not like this.”

“No,” he said. “I imagine not.” There was an odd note in his tone, something that might have been envy or disdain. “So this is your first time in a lion’s den, then.”

“I have read of it,” she said. “In the histories. In the songs.” Her chin lifted a fraction. “Lions are not the only hunters, ser.”

His laughter was soft, a huff of breath that warmed the air between them. “No,” he said. “I suppose they’re not.”

She risked a glance up at him.

His face, in profile, was unfairly beautiful, all strong lines and smooth angles. There was a nick along his jaw that looked recent, still pink. He must have caught her looking, because he turned his head and caught her eyes with his own.

For a moment, the world narrowed to that: blue meeting blue, the pulse jumping in her throat, the faint flare of his nostrils as he scented the air.

Something flickered there, fast and sharp and gone again: recognition, perhaps. Curiosity.

Then his gaze slid past her, scanning the corridor, hand resting loosely on his sword’s pommel. Whatever he’d smelt in that heartbeat, he would not name it. Not here. Not yet.

They reached the doorway to the Stark family’s assigned chambers in another dozen steps. Servants bowed; the gold cloaks peeled away.

Jaime stopped at the threshold, giving the room a quick, assessing glance before stepping aside.

“Welcome to King’s Landing, my lady,” he said, turning back to her. His tone was courteous, but there was a thread of something else in it she couldn’t pin down. “Mind the teeth.”

She frowned, not understanding.

He smiled, a flash of white that did not quite reach his eyes, and inclined his head. “Lord Stark.” Then he turned and walked away, cloak swaying, leaving the faint echo of his scent like a question in the air.

Sansa stood in the doorway, fingers tight on her skirts, and realized two things at once.

First: the stories had lied, or at least left things out. Nothing in the songs had prepared her for the way a lion might look at a wolf, or the way her own body might respond.

Second: word would already be spreading. A northern omega, unbonded, of good stock and marriageable age, walking at the Kingslayer’s shoulder under the king’s protection.

By supper, the court would be buzzing.

By morning, there would be names whispered in corners, offers weighed and gambits planned.

The wolf had stepped into the lion’s den.

And every predator in King’s Landing could smell the blood.

Chapter Text

By the time the bells rang for the first council of the day, every mouth in the Red Keep tasted of wolf.

It clung to the air in the way certain scents did—not strong, not overwhelming, but persistent, like a word you didn’t know in a language you only half-spoke. Servants whispered in storerooms, wetting rushes and gossiping over buckets; guards traded quiet jokes under their breaths at the gates; courtiers who would never have lowered themselves to discuss anything so crude as scent leaned closer to one another and murmured behind painted fans.

Northern omega. Unbonded. Of age.

The words threaded through the palace like smoke.

Sansa stood at the balcony of her borrowed chamber and watched the city wake, hands folded between the carved stone gargoyles.

The sky over King’s Landing was pink and raw, the sun dragging itself up out of the sea as if reluctant. The roofs below glowed with it, patchwork of tile and wood and tar. The streets were already busy: carts rattling, stray dogs darting, pennants stirring in the faint breeze. Somewhere far below, a woman laughed, sharp and bright, and a child cried. The smell of the city—salt, smoke, shit, and heat—rose sluggishly on the early air.

Inside, Septa Mordane muttered to Jeyne about unpacking, but Sansa had begged a few minutes and been granted them. The Septa was still unnerved by the sheer number of alphas in the Keep; her scent had gone sharp and sour on the ride up from the docks. She’d agreed to anything that kept Sansa cloistered, for now.

Sansa’s own scent was a thin ghost of itself under the rosewater and herbs, but the maester’s mixture wouldn’t hold as well today. Her body had settled after the journey, the low anxious thrum of being surrounded by strangers easing into something watchful. That made it harder to keep everything tamped down. Her omega wanted to map the new territory, to catalogue every alpha, every possible threat. Her head wanted to pretend none of that mattered.

She watched a column of gold cloaks march across a lower courtyard, their formation neat as stitching. The faint gleam of a white cloak moved among them, and she found herself trying to see if that particular figure walked like Jaime Lannister.

Her cheeks heated, and she stepped back from the balcony as if she’d been caught.

Maester’s herbs or no, she’d smelled him all night.

Not strongly—he’d been nowhere near her chambers, she knew that—but the memory of his scent kept resurfacing. Pine and steel and something older, quieter. Her body remembered the way the air had shifted when he’d stepped close in the corridor, how the press of a dozen other scents had receded under the cool line of his presence.

It had not been comforting, exactly. Comfort, to Sansa, had always been her father’s dark, steady scent, or her mother’s soft one, or the warm, tangled puppy-smell of her siblings wrestling on the floor by the fire. Jaime Lannister smelled like being watched in a training yard, like the edge of a cliff: danger, weight, potential.

But next to the crush of the throne room, he had felt like a barrier.

She pressed her fingers briefly to the place at her throat where his scent had brushed her when he’d leaned in, just enough to murmur his warning—Mind the teeth—and forced herself to turn back to her room.

“Lady Sansa,” Septa Mordane said, blinking in the morning light. “Come away from the balcony. Your father has been summoned to the king’s council, and it is not proper for you to be seen peering at the yard like a common maid.”

“Yes, Septa.” Sansa smoothed her expression, smoothing her thoughts in the same motion. “What shall I wear?”

They debated gowns. Septa Mordane wanted sober grey to show northern modesty; Sansa argued, gently, for a richer blue that made her hair look more like polished copper than the reddish tangle Arya always mocked.

In the end, she chose blue and a neckline high enough to satisfy the Septa, sleeves long and cuffed. A belt with subtle direwolf motifs, silver on silver. Her hair was braided and looped again, a little more elaborately, Septa Mordane’s fingers firmer than usual when they tugged.

“You will sit with Jeyne in the solar and practice your embroidery,” the Septa said as she pinned the last strand in place. “We must not be underfoot.”

“Underfoot?” Sansa echoed.

“Men talk more freely when they believe no women are near.” Mordane sniffed. “Today they will be talking about you. Best they do not think you are listening.”

Sansa’s fingers curled, crushing a fistful of skirts. “I am to marry the prince,” she said, forcing the words to stay level. “And my father is the Hand of the King. Why should they not want my opinion?”

The Septa shot her a sharp look, as if wary that such thoughts might grow teeth. “Because,” she said, “men are fools, my lady. And they mistake courtesy for ignorance.” She exhaled, some of her stiffness softening. “Listen all you like. Learn all you can. But let them think you have heard nothing.”

A thrill went through Sansa at that. It felt like being given permission to open a door she had only ever pressed her ear against.

“I understand,” she said quietly.

Septa Mordane kissed her brow, a brisk peck. “I was an omega in King’s Landing long before you were born,” she muttered. “I know the games they play.”

Then her father was at her door, already in his dark leathers, grey eyes shadowed by lack of sleep. He smelled of ink and candle smoke.

“You look well,” he told her, and his nostrils flared, as if to check that the words were true. “You will stay here today. With Jeyne. With the Septa. I will send word if plans change.”

“Yes, Father.” She stepped forward, hands fisting and unfisting at her sides. “Will you… will they speak of…”

He didn’t make her finish. “They will speak of alliances,” he said. “Of treaties. Of where to place their pieces on the board. It is what men on councils do.” He hesitated. “No matter what is said, remember this, Sansa: you are more than they will make of you. Remember who you are. You are a Stark of Winterfell.”

She swallowed. “Even if I am never to live there again?”

His scent flared with pain, quickly controlled. “Wherever my blood is, there is Winterfell,” he said. “Hold to that.” Then he turned and left, duty tugging him down the corridor.

Sansa watched him go, feeling a tightness in her chest that the summer heat could not explain.

The Small Council Chamber smelled of fear, wine, and ink.

Jaime took his place along the wall behind the king’s chair, white cloak settling around his boots, and braced himself for a long morning. Councils were rarely dull, exactly—there was always some financial disaster, some war rumor, some minor rebellion to swat at—but they were the wrong kind of entertainment. They were all talk, when he preferred action. The words went in circles, like dogs chasing their own tails, until Robert slammed a fist and decided on some course that the rest would quietly adjust around later.

Today, though, there was a new note in the air.

Not the wolf, not directly. The room itself had been scrubbed and aired; the Small Council liked to pretend it operated above such animal realities. But the knowledge of her hung around the edges. It tasted like anticipation, like the pause before dice hit a table.

Robert sprawled at the head of the oblong table, a hand already around a heavy cup. Renly, in forest green and antlers, lounged to his right. On the other side sat Cersei, dressed for battle in brocade and emeralds, her scent thick as honey. Petyr Baelish looked like a cat with cream; Varys looked like a content, bald spider. Grand Maester Pycelle wheezed and rearranged scrolls as if volume could disguise confusion. Lord Stark took the last chair, posture stiff as a sword in its scabbard.

“That’s the last of it,” Pycelle creaked, reading off some list about grain stores in the Reach. “If we could now move on to—”

“Yes, yes, the bloody grain,” Robert cut in. “We’ll feed the poor another day. I’ve had my Hand for less than a night and you’ve already tried to bury him in numbers.”

“A kingdom must be fed, Your Grace,” Varys murmured.

“And a king must not be bored to death,” Renly added cheerfully. “Well, brother? What disaster do you wish to discuss today? I hear we’ve acquired some new wolves.”

Robert’s grin flashed, bright despite the hangover lingering sour around him. “Aye. Ned’s brought his pups.” He tipped his cup toward Stark. “Your eldest is a serious boy. Good soldier, that one’ll make. The bastard—well, we can talk of that some other time. And the girls…” His eyes gleamed. “Prettier than you deserve, old friend.”

Cersei’s jaw tightened. Jaime saw it, and so did Renly, whose mouth curved.

“They are children,” Ned said evenly.

“Not so much,” Robert countered. “The older one’s what, fifteen? Sixteen?”

“Eighteen,” Ned said. “My lady Sansa is eighteen.”

“Gods, that’s nearly old.” Robert laughed, oblivious to the flinch that went around the table. “And unbonded, eh?”

The word dropped like a stone into a pond. Ripples.

Baelish tilted his head, smile small and sharp. “It is a rare thing, Your Grace,” he said. “An unbonded highborn omega, of such lineage and beauty. Why, the hallways are practically humming already. So many alphas walking about with their noses in the air, I thought winter had come again.”

Jaime gritted his teeth, just a fraction. Baelish’s scent was always a touch too cold, too calculating, for his liking. Today it had a new edge, like a man who’d smelled coin.

“Her status is not for the court’s amusement,” Cersei said, voice smooth but tight. “She is betrothed to the prince. Unless my Lord Husband intends to change that?”

The temperature of the room dropped a degree.

Jaime watched Robert’s tongue press against his teeth behind his beard, the way it always did when he was weighing how far he could push his wife. Robert had never been good at reading Cersei’s scent—not as good as Jaime, at least—but even he could tell she was coiled.

He shrugged. “A prince’s betrothal is not a small thing,” he said, which, of course, was not an answer. “But neither is a Hand’s daughter. The match is made, the gods have smiled.” He took a swallow of wine. “Still. There is no harm in looking at the board, is there, Ned?”

Ned’s scent sharpened, flint and cold iron. “What board?” he asked. “You asked me for my service, Your Grace. I have given it. You asked for my daughter’s hand for your son; it has been pledged.”

Baelish’s fingers toyed with one of the carved pieces on the council’s cyvasse board, rolling the little dragon between thumb and forefinger. “There are… alternatives,” he said, as if the thought pained him.

“Oh?” Robert raised a bushy brow.

“Your brother Stannis remains unwed,” Baelish pointed out. “An alliance with Dragonstone would strengthen the royal house. Or perhaps a match further afield—a Martell prince, say. Or the Reach. The Tyrells have been sniffing after omega brides for some time now. Imagine a Stark wolf guarding your southern flank, Your Grace. A useful hound.”

“A useful bitch,” Renly corrected softly, not quite under his breath.

Ned’s hands tightened on the edge of the table. Jaime could see the flare of his nostrils, the way his scent spiked—anger, protectiveness. The room smelled of it, ozone before a storm.

“You speak of my daughter as if she were a broodmare,” he said, each word carefully clipped.

Baelish spread his hands in wounded innocence. “I speak as any steward of the realm must, my lord. We are not discussing her… person, but her value. Her marriage prospects affect the balance of the kingdoms. An unbonded Stark omega could tie the North to any house in Westeros. It would be foolish not to consider that.”

Ned’s jaw clenched. “She is pledged already.”

“A pledge, my dear Hand, is not a bond,” Varys said softly, folding his delicate hands. “Not in the way that matters to alphas and omegas. Bonds may be… complicated, as we know. But betrothals can be broken.”

Cersei’s gaze flicked to Jaime so fast it was almost a scent, a flare of adrenal heat under her perfume. He held himself very still, eyes fixed on some point over Robert’s head.

Joffrey is not my son, he thought, letting the simple truth steady him.

He smelled nothing of me. He smelled of Lancel and Cersei and cold ambition.

If the boy noticed that the man he’d been told was his father didn’t move like him, didn’t react like him, didn’t look at him with that tug of pack-instinct, he had never given sign. Perhaps he didn’t know any better. Perhaps he didn’t care.

Jaime cared. Gods, he cared more than he wished. But caring changed nothing.

Now, though, listening to these men weigh Sansa Stark’s scent like coin, he found some part of him snarling.

“Enough,” Robert muttered, rubbing a hand over his face. “You’d trade my son’s bride away before she’s even tasted our wine.”

“She may have already tasted something,” Renly said dryly. “Did you hear the hall yesterday? There must have been twenty alphas sniffing about like dogs around a bitch in heat.”

Cersei’s eyes flashed. “Mind your tongue.”

Renly held up his hands. “Only speaking truth, sister. The girl is unbonded, and she smells it. Better we place her quickly, before some ambitious brute decides to do it for us.”

“That will not happen,” Ned said, voice low. “My men—”

“Your men cannot guard her at every moment,” Baelish interrupted. “Not in this city. We all know tales of heats brought on early, of closed doors and convenient misunderstandings. No one at this table wishes such a fate on your daughter, my lord. All the more reason to decide her future swiftly, eh?”

There it was: the naked thing under the words.

Heats brought on early. Doors closed. A frightened omega, cornered by a powerful alpha with a necessary excuse and a willing maester to write the outcome as “accident.” A forced bond, carried out under the cover of instinct and biology, legitimized after the fact.

Jaime had seen it done. Not in the Red Keep—the Queen’s Wrath would have been biblical—but on campaign, in smaller courts, in chaotic corners of the realm. A valuable omega, unguarded, was opportunity.

His lip curled.

“Perhaps we should hear from the girl herself,” he heard himself say.

The heads at the table turned toward him as if they’d forgotten he was there.

“Ser Jaime,” Cersei said, the sharpness in her tone a warning. “The council is not for—”

“For the opinions of sworn swords?” he asked, keeping his voice mild. “Forgive me. I thought we were discussing the safety of the Hand’s daughter. As I am sworn to protect the royal family, and she is soon to be counted among them, I assumed my interest was not unwarranted.”

Joffrey is Lancel’s son, he thought again, steady, sure. I owe the boy nothing. But the crown? The peace of the realm? That, at least, my cloak still binds me to.

Ned’s eyes had gone narrow, weighing him.

“What would you suggest, Ser Jaime?” Baelish asked, that little smile playing around his mouth. “Assign the girl a Kingsguard of her own? I think she would scandalize the court in a fortnight. A wolf among white cloaks.”

“She has guards,” Ned said shortly. “My men are capable.”

“And yet they do not know this city,” Varys murmured. “They do not know its secrets or its… appetites.”

“Neither do you,” Ned shot back. “You think you do, but you do not know my city. It is stone and snow and wind. It has no need of men like you.”

Varys inclined his head. “Perhaps. But you are in our city now, my lord. And our city is full of men who smell opportunity as keenly as any wolf smells blood.”

Jaime shifted his weight. “The Hand is right about one thing,” he said. “The girl is pledged to the prince. To unmake that would be to show weakness. And she is… more visible now than she would have been had we kept the betrothal quiet.” He let his gaze slide across them, holding each eye in turn. “All eyes are on her. Any… mishap would be public. And the king is not lenient with men who touch what is his.”

Robert grunted agreement, woken by the notion of his property being threatened.

“Then you propose… what?” Renly asked. “Keep her always in Joffrey’s sight? That hardly seems a kindness.”

“What I propose,” Jaime said, “is that we honor the pledge already made and act as if we are not drooling over fresh meat.” His gaze lingered on Baelish for a heartbeat longer than necessary. “We do not trade the girl’s future like coin at a brothel. We secure her, see her protected until such time as the prince reaches his majority and the bond can be properly formalized.”

“Very noble,” Cersei drawled, anger coiling around her scent. “Tell me, brother, when did you grow so fond of wolves?”

He met her eyes, and for a moment they were just Jaime and Cersei again, twin mirrors, two halves of something broken. He saw the question there—and underneath it, the accusation. Are you protecting her because she is useful, or because she is not me?

“When I saw what this city does to those without teeth,” he said lightly. “She has claws, I’ll grant you. But she is alone here.”

Ned inhaled sharply. It wasn’t thanks—not yet, not from a man like that—but something had shifted.

Baelish laced his fingers together. “There are other considerations,” he said. “Land. Dowry. The North brings much to the table.”

“Not more than the continued goodwill of the Hand,” Robert said, finally sounding like the man who’d once followed Ned into war. “Leave off, Petyr. The girl stays promised. Ned’s not as much of a fool as you’d make him out. He’ll watch her closely.”

Baelish dipped his head, accepting the check, but Jaime saw the calculation still ticking behind his eyes. Littlefinger never stopped counting.

“Very well, Your Grace,” Varys said. “We will do our utmost to ensure the Lady Sansa’s… comfort.” His smile was placid. “I will instruct the servants accordingly. Discreet escorts. Trustworthy maids.”

“See that you do,” Ned said.

Jaime watched as the council moved on, the conversation sliding into other channels: ships, debts, rumors from the east. But the scent in the room had changed. Less anticipation now, more frustration. A meal spotted and then told it was not for eating.

He stayed very still by the king’s shoulder, fingers loose on his sword hilt, and wondered when, exactly, he had begun to care that a girl he barely knew was being bartered like a prize sow.

Maybe always, he thought bleakly. Maybe I’ve just been better at pretending.

The solar was stuffy, even with the windows open.

Sansa bent over her embroidery frame, the threads blurring in and out of focus as the Septa droned through a passage about proper deportment for noblewomen. Jeyne stifled a yawn behind her hand. Midmorning sun slanted across the floor, turning the dust motes into tiny golden things that danced when she exhaled.

She’d tried to listen. Truly, she had. It was easier, she’d found, to bear boredom than fear. Boredom could be escaped through imagination; fear dug claws into the present.

But every time her needle dipped, her mind slid toward the council chamber. She pictured her father sitting straight-backed at the table, surrounded by strangers. She pictured the king, laughing. She pictured Petyr Baelish’s thin smirk and Varys’ placid, knowing eyes.

She pictured them talking about her.

“…and you must always remember,” Septa Mordane went on, “that as an omega, your first duty is to your house. Your bond must serve to strengthen its position, to provide heirs, to—”

“I know my duty, Septa,” Sansa said, a little too sharply. The needle pricked her finger in punishment; a bead of blood welled up scarlet against her skin.

Mordane’s eyes softened. “You know the words,” she said. “It is not the same.”

Sansa pressed the pad of her thumb to the broken skin, the sting a welcome distraction. “And what of my duty to myself?” she asked, quieter.

“The gods rarely concern themselves with such things,” the Septa replied. “Neither does the realm.” Her mouth twisted. “But I do. Which is why you will not go wandering the halls alone. Not here. Not yet.”

Jeyne shifted on the bench. “Might we at least walk in the gardens?” she ventured. “My lady should get acquainted with them, if she is to live here. And it’s… stifling.”

The Septa hesitated. “The gardens,” she said slowly, “if you stay where the guards can see you. No further. And if you see any unfamiliar men lingering, you turn back at once, do you understand?”

“Yes, Septa,” they chorused.

Sansa left her embroidery in its hoop, flexing her cramped fingers. “Come, Jeyne. The roses here must be beautiful.”

“Everything is beautiful,” Jeyne whispered as they stepped into the corridor. “Did you see the tapestries in the king’s hall? And the fountain with the lions? And those knights—”

“Shh,” Sansa murmured. Her ears were straining for footsteps, for voices.

There were guards at the far end of the corridor, as there always were, standing with disciplined stiffness. They nodded as the girls passed and fell in at a discreet distance. Sansa pretended not to notice. It was easier that way.

The route to the gardens took them past a bend where the stone walls thickened. Sansa had no true sense of the castle yet; it rose and curled and doubled back on itself in ways Winterfell never had. The air here was cooler, the window slits narrower, the sounds muffled.

“…I tell you, Riverrun would be stronger,” a man’s voice drifted, distorted by stone.

Sansa’s steps slowed.

“Sansa,” Jeyne hissed. “We’ll be late for the gardens.”

“Just a moment.” Sansa moved toward the source of the voices, careful and quiet. The guards behind them exchanged a glance but didn’t bark at her; perhaps they thought she was merely curious about the architecture. Perhaps they didn’t realize the danger of a girl with ears.

There was a narrow side passage, half-hidden behind a jut of wall. Sansa slipped into it, Jeyne reluctant but loyal at her heels.

The voices grew clearer with each step. She recognized Petyr Baelish’s light, amused tone, and another—Lord Varys, she thought.

“…of course, the crown would prefer to keep the North tied to it through the Baratheons,” Baelish was saying. “But if circumstances were to change…”

“Circumstances so often do,” Varys agreed. “A spilled drink, a rash word, a misunderstanding. A broken betrothal, perhaps.” The soft rustle that followed was probably him adjusting his robes. “We must always be prepared to adapt.”

Sansa reached a small, latticed window set into the inner wall, more decorative than defensive. Through it, she could see a slice of a chamber: a portion of a table, the curve of a high-backed chair, a spill of maps. The Small Council.

Her heart lurched. She pressed closer, ignoring Jeyne’s frantic tug at her sleeve.

“Riverrun would be an appropriate match,” Baelish continued. “Your charming wife’s uncle has sons, does he not? A Stark omega there would tie the riverlands firmly to the North and the Tullys to the Starks.”

“Riverrun has never much liked the crown,” another voice said—Ned’s, she realized, tight with restraint. “And my daughter is promised.”

“We are only speaking hypothetically, my lord,” Baelish cooed. “Theoretically. One must always consider the value of such… assets.”

Assets. The word seemed to hiss through the crack.

“Stark honor keeps its promises,” Ned said. “We do not trade away our children on a whim.”

“You traded your son to the Night’s Watch,” a new voice pointed out. Renly, with his lazy amusement. “Seems like a poor exchange. A handsome boy like that; you should have kept him for some southern lady. Or lord.”

“That decision was Jon’s, not mine,” Ned snapped.

Sansa slapped a hand over her mouth before a gasp escaped. Jon. They were discussing Jon. Her half-brother, far to the north by now. She hadn’t thought the southern lords would even know of him, let alone care enough to speak his name.

“Relax, Ned,” Robert’s rumble cut in. “No one’s taking your girl from my boy. The matter’s settled.”

“And yet,” Varys murmured, “the fact remains: an unbonded omega in the capital is… tempting. One wrong step, and the outcome is irreversible. If some ambitious alpha were to engineer a… situation…”

“Any man who touches my daughter without my leave will find himself short a hand,” Ned said. “And anything else I can reach.”

“Oooh.” A soft chuckle—Renly again. “The North shows its teeth.”

“Teeth do little good when you’re surrounded,” Baelish said. “My lord, forgive me, but you underestimate the hunger in this city. Not just the hunger of men with swords, but of houses with debts, with ambitions. The Lannisters are not the only ones who see opportunity in such a prize.”

“The Lannisters,” Cersei’s voice slid in, cool and deadly, “are not in the habit of snatching girls off the street, Petyr. Or of forcing bonds.”

“And yet,” Baelish said softly, “your cousin has sired a prince on you, my lady.”

Sansa’s breath caught. Jeyne made a tiny, strangled noise.

Stone pressed cold against Sansa’s palms.

“You forget yourself,” Cersei said, the fury in her scent almost visible. “How dare you—”

“Oh, come now,” Baelish went on, as smooth as oiled steel. “This is not the Sept. We are all men—and women—of the world here. We know how bonds can be... manipulated. How heats can be… encouraged. How consanguinity can be overlooked when it suits. A Stark omega would be a safer, neater solution for the North. And for the throne. No whispers of bastardy or incest. No awkward questions about whether the prince smells like his supposed sire.”

There was a silence so heavy Sansa could feel it through the wall.

Jaime’s hand tightened around the pommel of his sword, knuckles pale under the leather. His scent went knife-sharp.

He had known, of course. He had known since he’d first smelled Joffrey, since the boy had begun to smell more of Lancel as he aged. He had told himself it was irony; Cersei, who had once knelt with him on the cold stone of Casterly Rock and sworn that they were two halves of the same whole, had gone to his pale, eager cousin to get the heir she wanted.

It had been petty. It had been desperate. It had been a way of keeping something of Jaime even when she couldn’t risk his seed.

It had not given Joffrey any of Jaime’s better qualities.

“Watch your tongue,” Robert growled.

“I meant no offense, Your Grace,” Baelish said, and Jaime could hear the false humility in every syllable. “I merely point out that the girl’s body will decide matters for you if you do not decide them yourselves. An omega’s heat is not a thing easily contained. One misstep, one moment unattended, and she might find herself bonded to whomever happens to be closest. A guard, a courtier, a knight… even a cousin.”

“At least Lancel has the decency to be a Baratheon,” Cersei hissed. “If you suggest that my cousin forced me, I’ll have your tongue.”

Jaime felt heat crawl up his neck. He did not look at her. If he did, he might see what he’d been refusing to acknowledge: that she had used her own body as a pawn in these games, too. That she had manipulated her heats, her scents, her availability to orchestrate the appearance of legitimacy.

“I suggest nothing,” Baelish said. “I imply. It is a different sport entirely.”

“Gods, I hate your voice,” Robert muttered. “Ned, do whatever you must to keep the girl safe. Guards, locks, herbs, whatever northern tricks you have. I will not have some idiot forcing a bond on her and starting a blood feud before the year’s out.”

“And if Joffrey forces it?” Renly’s question hung in the air, soft as silk, sharp as razors.

Silence again.

“He will not,” Cersei said at last, every line of her body rigid. “My son is not an animal.”

“No,” Jaime thought, and tasted bile. “He’s something worse. Something made by us.”

Sansa swayed where she stood, breath shallow. The herb mixture she’d taken that morning had done nothing to blunt the impact of hearing herself discussed like a piece of game.

Her mind snagged on the worst pieces: prize, heat, mishap, whoever happens to be closest.

It was not that she had been ignorant. She’d been raised knowing what an omega’s body meant. In Winterfell, though, her heats had been something private, something discussed in low voices with her mother, her Septa, the maester. Omegas in the North were valued, protected. Her future had always been a betrothal, yes, but one made with respect.

Here, in the space of an hour, she had become a potential scandal, a leverage point, a problem to be solved.

Her stomach turned.

Jeyne pulled frantically at her sleeve. “We shouldn’t be here,” she whispered. “Sansa, please, we shouldn’t—”

A footstep sounded at the far end of the little passage.

Sansa jerked back from the lattice, heart hammering, and spun.

Jaime Lannister stood at the mouth of the corridor, white cloak bright even in the dimness.

For a moment, none of them moved. The guards who had trailed the girls stopped a few paces behind him, shifting nervously. Jaime’s eyes flicked over them, then to the girls, then to the lattice where the faint drone of council voices still leaked.

He didn’t need to scent the air to know what they’d been doing. The guilt and panic rolled off Jeyne in waves; Sansa was whiter than her embroidery linen, eyes wide and bright.

He exhaled slowly.

“Lady Sansa,” he said, voice quiet. “You are a long way from the gardens.”

Her throat worked. “I… I lost my way, ser.”

“Indeed.” His gaze flicked to the lattice. “It is easy to become… turned around, in the Red Keep.”

Jeyne made a small, miserable sound.

Sansa lifted her chin by an infinitesimal degree. “I did not mean to intrude,” she said. “I did not know this passage led to the council chamber.”

Liar, he thought. Or half-liar. She might not have known at first. But she had known once she heard her father’s voice filtered through stone, and she had kept listening.

He could smell the tang of her distress even under the herbs and rosewater: sharp, high, like ice cracking on a pond. Her omega instincts were wound tight, bristling at being discussed as if she were not a person.

He remembered Baelish’s voice: prize, asset, mishap. He remembered Renly’s: bitch in heat.

He understood now why the words had made his gorge rise.

“Come,” he said, gentler. “This is not a safe place for you to be.”

He stepped closer, into their narrow corridor, and watched her instinctive flinch. He made himself move slowly. His hand came up—not to touch her, but to hover near her elbow, where she could take it or not as she wished.

She didn’t. But neither did she pull away. She stood very still, proud as any queen, while her scent whispered panic.

Her practiced court smile, thin but present, slid into place. “Of course, Ser Jaime,” she said. “I would not wish to… disturb my lord father.”

Liar, liar. But there was no point in exposing her.

He turned, putting his body between her and the lattice. “I will see the ladies to the gardens,” he told the guards. “You may return to your posts.”

They obeyed, relieved. No one wanted to be responsible for explaining to the Hand why his daughter had been caught eavesdropping on the council. Better to let the Kingslayer take that weight.

As they walked, Sansa’s steps a fraction too tight, he felt it.

The moment when she pulled herself together.

Her breaths evened. Her shoulders settled. The scent of panic cooled, replaced by something flatter, more controlled. It was like watching a piece of silk be folded, edges lined up, until the pattern was hidden.

“You heard enough,” he said softly, when the corridor broadened and the sounds of the council were truly behind them.

She stared straight ahead. “I heard… more than I wished,” she admitted. “Less than they have no doubt said before.”

He blinked.

“You think this is new to me, ser?” Her voice remained soft, but there was iron underneath. “That men discuss my worth when they think I cannot hear? That I have not listened from stairwells and behind doors at Winterfell, hearing my future… weighed?” She swallowed. “I did not think the words would hurt more here. I suppose that was foolish.”

He had no answer for that.

“Forgive me,” she added, as if some inner voice had chided her. “It is not my place to speak so. I am grateful to be… considered.” The bitterness on the last word was so slight he might have imagined it.

He glanced down at her. “You are not livestock,” he said.

Color flared in her cheeks. “I am an omega,” she replied. “Sometimes it is difficult to see the difference.”

They passed a window. Light fell across her face, pale and sharp as if painted. Her eyes met his, just for a heartbeat.

There it was: the crack in the courtesy.

Fear, yes. Anger, yes. But also an ember of something else. Not attraction—not yet. Not with the stink of overheard words still in her nose. But awareness. A recognition that he had heard, too. That he had stood in that chamber and seen the dice roll.

His own scent tugged toward her, instinctively offering steadiness. He reined it in.

“You heard what they said about… accidents,” she murmured.

“Yes.” His jaw tightened. “You will have guards at your door. Trusted women in your rooms. If anyone tries anything, they will answer to me.”

“And to my father,” she said.

“And to your father,” he agreed. “But your father cannot be everywhere. I, however, am annoyingly difficult to avoid in this castle.”

Jeyne snorted despite herself. Sansa’s mouth twitched; the threat of tears in her scent retreated a fraction.

They reached the gardens, at last: a riot of green and color enclosed by high walls. The air here smelled of earth and flowers and water, less tainted by the city beyond.

Septa Mordane was waiting on a bench, her face thunderous. She rose as they approached, skirts swishing.

“Lady Sansa,” she scolded. “You were to come straight here.”

“My fault, Septa,” Jaime said easily, stepping in. “I stopped the ladies to ask if they had seen one of the kitchen boys. They were not at fault.”

The Septa hesitated, scent bristling with disapproval and an omega’s ingrained wariness of meddling alphas. “You should not detain my charges in back corridors, Ser Jaime,” she said stiffly. “Not when the court is… as it is.”

He inclined his head, accepting the rebuke. “You are quite right. It will not happen again.” He looked at Sansa, letting his gaze linger one heartbeat longer than propriety required. “Enjoy the gardens, my lady.”

Her eyes met his, locking.

There. Not fear now. Something sharper, more considering. A question: Why are you lying for me? And underneath that, a hard, bright resolve that made him think of ice under thin snow.

He let his own gaze answer: Because I heard them. Because I am tired of this game. Because you are young and alone, and for once, I would like to stand between the teeth and something that does not deserve to be bitten.

Then he turned and left, cloak sweeping the path.

Behind him, he could feel her eyes on his back like a touch.

Eye-fucking, Renly would have called it, with his careless grin. The way two people could strip each other with nothing but a look, could map skin and intention without a single dropped stitch of clothing.

This was not that. Not yet.

But it was something.

The noon meal in the great hall was a more casual affair than the feast the night before, but it still glittered. Sun poured through the high windows, catching dust and smoke and the gleam of polished silver. The royal family sat on the dais; the Hand’s seat had been moved closer, an honor that felt as much a collar as a courtesy.

Sansa sat beside Joffrey now, as propriety demanded. Her father sat below them, close enough to speak quietly to the king when needed. The queen was a cold, fragrant presence on Robert’s other side. Jaime stood at his usual place behind the king, helm at his feet, sword at his hip.

He watched them.

Joffrey was in a good mood. His scent was thinner today, less fretful, scented heavily with some musk oil that didn’t suit him. He leaned toward Sansa, murmuring comments that made her laugh on cue. He liked her laughter—Jaime could see that. Not because he found joy in it, but because it responded to strings he pulled.

Sansa’s scent was almost entirely smothered by perfume and herbs, but he knew enough now to read between those layers. She was tense. Her smile was perfect, but the muscles at the back of her jaw jumped when she thought no one was looking. Her hands rested on the table with impeccable posture; the knuckles were white.

She was performing the part they had written for her. The unbonded omega, grateful for the attention of a prince.

His stomach turned.

“Is something amusing, Kingslayer?” Cersei’s voice cut up to him, pitched low enough that only he could hear.

He realized his lip had curled again.

“Council was… lively,” he said, keeping his gaze on the hall.

“It always is when Starks are involved.” Her scent slid toward him, cloying and familiar. “You were very gallant. Defending the girl.”

“Someone in that room should have,” he replied.

Cersei’s fingers tightened around her goblet. “You would rather see her tied to my son,” she said. “You think that a kinder fate?”

“I think breaking a betrothal to chase some half-imagined advantage is idiotic,” he said. “You undermine our own position. Make us look desperate.”

“We are desperate,” she snapped, just loud enough that his bones felt it. “You think I do not see them, weighing us? Smelling at Joff like he’s rotten meat? The realm whispers about his scent, Jaime. About his temper. About his lack of…” She cut herself off, a quick glance at Lancel, who was hovering nearby, nervous as ever.

Jaime followed her gaze. The boy’s scent flared with guilt; his eyes skittered away.

“Yes,” Jaime said softly. “I imagine it does.”

Her eyes flicked to him, fury and something like fear tangled. “Do not judge me,” she hissed. “You, who would not risk your cloak. Your honor. You left me to—”

“Not now,” he said, the words a weary warning. “Not here.”

She bit back whatever she’d been about to say. Her attention snapped back to the hall, to the girl by her son’s side.

Sansa laughed at something Joffrey said, the sound chiming like a bell. Jaime saw the moment when her eyes slid away from the prince, the tiniest flick up and outward, skimming the room.

Their gazes collided.

It hit like a slap.

In that glance, a hundred things passed.

He saw the panic behind her practiced smile, the conscious effort it took to keep her shoulders relaxed, to keep her hands gentle when Joffrey reached over to toy with a strand of her hair. He saw the banked fury at being treated like a trinket, the hurt at hearing she might be traded, the grim determination to be the perfect lady anyway.

She saw—he didn’t know what she saw. A man in white. A Lannister lion. A sword in human skin.

Whatever it was, it made something in her steady.

Her lips curved, the faintest change, the smile becoming less brittle. She held his gaze for a heartbeat longer than was strictly proper before lowering her eyes again, turning back to her prince.

Eye contact in a king’s hall was a language.

Come closer. Stay away. Help me. Don’t you dare.

He wondered which she had meant.

Later, when Joffrey’s cup was empty and he made a show of calling for more wine, he leaned in too close to Sansa, his arm brushing her shoulder. Jaime heard the shift in her breath, saw the way tension climbed her spine.

He stepped forward, cloak whispering.

“Careful, Your Grace,” he said easily. “Too much wine at noon and you’ll miss your archery practice. We wouldn’t want that.”

Joffrey paused, caught by the mildness and the subtle rebuke beneath. His mouth twisted. “I can handle my wine, uncle,” he said.

“I’m sure you can,” Jaime agreed. “But a man must also handle his bow. We wouldn’t want the court thinking the prince’s aim is… uncertain.”

Laughter rippled, quickly smothered.

Joffrey’s scent flared with resentment. He pushed back from the table, tossing his head. “Come, Sansa,” he said. “Walk with me.”

She rose, graceful. Her eyes flicked once more to Jaime.

That look was different.

A question. A challenge. Perhaps even a demand: If you are so keen to stand between me and teeth, will you stand between me and this one?

He couldn’t. Not yet. Not without breaking more than he could shield. But he could at least shadow.

“As you wish, Your Grace,” he said, falling into place behind the prince as the boy led Sansa down off the dais and into the heat of the hall.

They walked the length of it, between tables where men paused with bread halfway to their mouths to stare.

Joffrey talked, his voice low and fast, full of boasts about hunts and hounds and the swordmaster who would soon be training him. Sansa listened, every inch of her polite, asking little questions where required, making the right noise at the right time. Her scent had gone flat, like a pond with a layer of ice over it.

Jaime watched the set of her shoulders, the way her gaze dragged up to the high rafters when Joffrey’s hand drifted a little too low on her back.

He drifted, too, just enough to be visible at the edge of her vision. White cloak. Gold hair. A line of steel in between her and the rest of the hall.

Her eyes slid sideways, catching him.

Not a plea, this time. Something harder.

I see you. I see that you see. I will remember.

He inclined his head by a hair’s breadth.

He would remember, too.

That night, Sansa lay awake in her curtained bed, staring at the canopy.

The city breathed around her: a constant, low susurration of sound. She could hear laughter from some distant hall, the murmur of guards changing shifts, the sea’s restless sigh against the rocks. The scents of the day lingered in her nose, heavy as fog. Perfume. Wine. Heat. Men.

She replayed the council words in her mind. Asset. Prize. Mishap.

And over that, like another layer of embroidery, Jaime Lannister’s voice: You are not livestock.

Her omega hummed, restless. It didn’t know what to make of him. He was an alpha, dangerous and high-ranking, with the capacity to do great harm. It should have been wary, should have urged her to keep her distance. Instead, some perverse part of her pricked its ears when he was near, recognizing in him something that might be shield as easily as sword.

“Stupid,” she whispered to herself. “Stupid, stupid.”

You are betrothed. You will bond the prince. You will be queen. You will do your duty.

Her body did not care, quite, about duty. It cared about safety. It cared about the scent of steel between her and a hungry room. It cared about the way her panic had lessened a fraction when he’d stepped into that narrow passage, putting his back to the voices who’d spoken of her as if she were a problem to be solved.

In another room, down another corridor, Jaime lay on his own back, staring at his own canopy.

He smelled her, faintly, in memory. Frosted apple and snowmelt, undercut by herbs and the thin thread of her fear. He smelled the council chamber, too—the stink of politics and opportunism.

He thought of Cersei, of the games she’d played with her body, her heats, her scent. He thought of Lancel, pale and eager, smelling of cheap wine and desperation. He thought of Joffrey, sharp and cruel, carrying none of Jaime’s blood and all of their worst traits.

He thought of Sansa Stark sitting at the prince’s side, smile tight, eyes meeting his across the hall.

He had always known he was a piece on the board, moved by his father’s will and his sister’s desires. A sword to be pointed, a body to be used. He had told himself it did not matter, so long as he could keep Cersei close, so long as he could keep Joffrey from becoming a liability.

But watching them discuss Sansa as if she were a purse of coin, something new had stirred. Disgust, yes—with them, with himself. And something like resolve.

“A wolf in the lion’s den,” he murmured to the dark. “They’ll tear you apart if I let them.”

He was one lion only, one man in white in a castle full of gold and red. His cloak bound him to a throne that did not smell of his line.

But it bound him, too, to the protection of the innocent.

He had not done well by that oath.

Perhaps it was time to start.