I first decided to write this because I was tired of reading about characters that were perfect, that always had the best morals and were so beautiful men just automatically fell in love with them. Something about the fanfictions from Robb's time always drew me, and I knew I wanted my character to have gone through a drastic change. So I planned and thought things through and came up with this. I'll take both positive and negative criticism. Without it, it's hard to grow as a writer. I hope you enjoy~

Chapter 1

A gossamer veil of crème white covered her face. Her cheeks had been pinched a more pleasing dusky pink and lips dabbed with red berries. She could smell the putrid stench that whiffed off her father, musky and stale, reeking slightly of onions and things long past their expiration. As he limped next to her, a lecherous smirk rested on his lips.

Her father was happy, a rare thing in itself.

The only time he ever seemed joyful was when he sold off another daughter or got a new wife. It was the first time he had ever been happy with her, for sure. She bit down on her lip, scuffing her feet as she walked. Many of her sisters said being married was better. They were able to away from here, some even running their own homes as ladies of a small castle.

But many said it was just as bad, worse even. Sometimes what a man did to you at night was unspeakable.

Shirei clenched her hand together tighter, pulling her eyes from the floor to her intended. He was handsome, no one could deny that. Her brother, Black Walder, had laughed when it was announced she would marry the boy-king Robb Stark. He said Robb Stark was prettier than her, with pretty locks and an even prettier face.

He didn't look like a boy-king, he looked a man grown. A seasoned warrior. His expression bore impatience. With her, with the situation. Probably everything, which did not bode well. He had curls the color of autumn and eyes like the river that their bridge covered. They were just as punishing too, willing to tear and break and kill.

She clenched her jaw, hoping to stop the trembling. She knew it was useless, but she could think of nothing else to stop her from crying. Concentrating on that at least stopped the flow of tears. It was the first time Shirei had met her intended, and her brothers had spent the day telling her of the ravenous wolf of the north that was like a ghost. They told her of his direwolf that ripped off the limbs of his enemies. How he never lost a battle. Her mind had created a monster with their words, and she could see nothing but that.

The septon spoke his words. Her veil was lifted. Her father sat; and through it all she could do nothing but stare at the cracks in the ground. Eyes following every crevice between the stones. She could feel his gaze on her, but she didn't dare look up. Not as their wrists were laced together, nor as they spoke the sacred words binding them together. Not even when he took her arm and they all walked out of the hall to the feast. His arm was around hers and all she could think about is how well muscled it was. What he would do to her with them. None of her brothers were that strong but they still hurt her. She knew it now. She would not survive Robb Stark, and she finally she gave into her tears.

"My Lady?"

It was her husband, sounding hesitant and unsure for the first time instead of his constant brooding. She turned to him and at that moment she didn't see a killer.

He looked like a boy.

King Robb grimaced, brows furrowed together as he watched the tears slide down her face. "I know neither of us wished this, but we must make the best of it. We're husband and wife now."

He watched her, slivers of hope gleaning from his eyes. She swallowed, gathering herself and managing to stop the tears. She pulled her eyes away from his, just in time to catch her brother Hosteen laughing at her. He always called her weak, but enjoyed seeing her pain. She turned away as soon as he noticed her attention on him, lest he think she was being insolent and decide a good smack would do her good.

"What is your name? I'm afraid I was never told it," he admitted, sheepish.

Shirei took a deep breath in. It was more likely her father didn't know it so never told the King. Her father always forget her name. There were so many of them, after all. "Shi-Shirei, My Lord," she stuttered, flinching when she realized her mistake. "Your Grace."

His lips made that thin line again as he took a swill of ale. "Call me Robb. We're married." He turned from her, watching the celebration in disgust as her brothers tugged on the kitchen wenches and groped their backsides; her father shouting for more wine and saying unspeakable things about his current wife Joyeuse, who was more child than woman. Robb leaned towards her. "You do know what happens on a wedding night?"

Shirei flinched, fingers clenching the fabric of her rough-spun dress. The first dress she had ever worn that was not a hand-me-down. It was the first thing that had truly been hers.

"I do, your Grace," she only said.

She knew very well what happened on a wedding night. Her good-sister Kyra's cries could be heard all through her own wedding night and through the next day. Until Shirei's brother and Kyra's husband, Garse, got tired of her whining and threw her into the pig pen.

"Robb," he corrected.

"Of course."

His fingers tapped on the fraying wooden tables. She strained to listen, recognizing it as 'The Winter Maid,' a popular Northern song. "You do know you are Queen?"

It was another useless title. Being a lady never saved her. Why would being queen? Besides, royalty was everywhere now. In the South there was the bastard Joffrey, in the east the pretender Renly. The west has the kraken Greyjoy and then there was King Stannis Baratheon. The only one who seemed to have a legitimate claim to the thrown. It was easy to become a King these days, and being queen didn't seem so important. It was the men who had power no matter who you were, and Shirei would never be a man.

"I do."

"Do you wish to do anything with that title?"

Shirei frowned, unsure what he was asking of her. She didn't know this man well, nor his games. If it was Black Walder she'd know he wished to grope her. If it was Hosteen he wanted her pain. Jared liked to torment her with words, to see her cry. Big Walder just liked to see how stupid she was by asking her questions he knew she'd never know. Her father liked to feel powerful, he liked her meekness even if he acted like it annoyed him. They all wanted something, she just had to give it and they'd let her be.

But she didn't know what Robb Stark wanted.

"I will do as you tell me," she said finally, hoping it was the right answer.

He frowned but did nothing to her, so perhaps she had answered well enough. He leaned back in his chair, giving up on any conversation with her which was good. She couldn't mess up that way.

The King's mother sat on his other side. She was a beautiful woman. Even at her age she was more beautiful that Shirei would ever be. Every so often she would look at Shirei, her expression indistinguishable. She hadn't touched any of the food or wine the entire night. As Sherei studied her their eyes met for the first time. The older woman stood abruptly, walking the few steps to Shirei.

"It would delight me if you took a walk with me, your Grace."

Shirei's eyes fell to her husband. She waited for his leave, but he paid no attention to either of them. Lost in his own thoughts. Lady Catelyn cleared her throat and Shirei panicked, eyes darting back and forth from her husband to her new good-mother. That expression slid across Catelyn's face again, and the woman took pity on her. "I'm not sure how you do it in the Twins, but with us you don't have to divert to your husband for every little thing."

Her words jolted Robb out of his thought and he looked between the two, a steadfast frown on his face. "You don't have to ask me to speak with my mother. You're free to see who you please."

Shirei's nose twitched. It must be some type of trick. It must be power Robb Stark liked, much like her father. To give it only to take it away and laugh as hope dimmed in her eyes. She stood, waiting for him to stop her, to laugh in her face and tell her to sit down.

But now he only looked worried.

Lady Catelyn took her arm, taking her away from the feast. Shirei was still waiting, shoulders slumped and body tensed, but he never did. It didn't make sense. She couldn't figure him out, and that worried her more than anything.

She relaxed as soon as the men were far from them, out of sight. The trembles stopped, and a minute smile grew upon her lips as she looked at her good-mother.

"Your Grace?" Catelyn murmured, watching the transformation. It was a jarring sight for her.

Shirei gave a quivering smile to Lady Catelyn. "Your son confuses me." Now that all the men away she could speak freely. "I don't know what he wants."

Catelyn's repeated her words silently, brows furrowed. "I'm afraid I do not understand you."

"Men always want something," Shirei said plainly. "I just can't figure it out. If you told me it would save me a lot of pain and suffering." She smiled winningly at Lady Catelyn, who looked as if she were even more confused than before.

"Robb wants an heir, I suppose."

"Of course," she said patiently. "All men want that. I'm talking about what he really wants. Does he like to manipulate? Hurt? What makes him happy?"

Catelyn flinched as if someone had slapped her. She was quiet, and that strange expression finally left her face and only pity remained. Shirei was used to that look, all women shared it.

"Your upbringing?" Catelyn said finally.

"Oh, yes," Shirei said, not understanding the question. "We did have a septa, if you're worried about that. We were taught how to run a household, although nothing as big as Winterfell. I'm sure I'll need your help at first."

Catelyn appeared to be choosing her words carefully. "Your family?"

Shirei frowned. "Yes?"

"They hurt you?"

Shirei bit her lip and began walking again, arm still linked with Lady Catelyn's. "Men always hurt."

Even when they love. When Shirei was fourteen she had fallen in love with a pig farmer's son. He had always been kind to her. He said he loved her, and she loved him back. But then she found out he said that to all the girls, and she wasn't the only one he told it to. Her brother's had found it hilarious that not only that she fell in love with a pig farmer's son but he had played her too. They had given him gold for it they liked it so much, and Shirei had learned from her mistake. Boys didn't love girls, at least not one's like her. They only wanted the dainty, pretty ones, and a Frey was anything but that. She didn't look much like her father, but her mother hadn't been a beauty either.

She had a sister, Morya, who fell in love with her husband. She always hurt. He told her that he loved her and then slept with other women, and Morya's love was so much that she couldn't harden herself to him. She just hurt.

There was no love in the world for a Frey. Shirei had learned this lesson very well.

Catelyn's arms wrapped around her shoulders. "I promise you it won't be like that anymore. No one will hurt you."

Shirei nearly laughed. "You cannot promise that, and King Robb will be doing most of the hurting. I'm his wife, there for him to do as he pleases. Will you step in the way of that?" She wouldn't. No woman would ask for more hurt than she is already given.

"My son is not like that," she said vehemently, eyes beseeching. "We raised him well, taught him to honor women. To treat his wife with respect, as that will be the woman who bears his children."

Shirei did not know what to think of that. It sounded so strange, like a fairytale that the kitchen wenches sometimes told her.

"I see," she answered carefully. The world was different for Catelyn Stark, after all. She wasn't a Frey, and she was beautiful.

The woman had wanted to say more, Shirei could tell, but then one of her brothers grabbed her and pulled her away. "It's time for the bedding ceremony," Hosteen smirked, eying her.

It wasn't hard for her to switch to the mouse anymore. She had years of experience, and as soon as he touched her Shirei's shoulders had slumped, eyes falling to the floor and face morose. She was a doll, to be yanked and pulled on as they please. To be dragged behind and thrown in anger. It's all she would ever be.

She flinched when Hosteen pinched her, drawing blood. Her eyes watered and tears fell, what he had wanted in the first place. "Enjoy your husband. I hear he turns into a beast at night and it will be an animal you bed, not a man."

He laughed in her face, spittle dotting her cheeks as true fear filled her again. Her eyes searched the darkness, stumbling as he dragged her. Shirei's mind raced for something, anything, to stall him. All she had ever wanted was to live. If she wanted death she would have offed herself like one of her sister's had. She wanted to live.

Hosteen shoved her into the hall and the men cheered. Robb Stark stood at the front of the hall, noble and stern. His eyes hardened as they took her in, the tears and fear. How she trembled and twisted, searching for an out. Any way out of this hall and away from them, and he stepped down off the platform.

"That is enough."

His voice wasn't loud, but it was enough to quiet the men in the room. The silence was only broken by a loud belch and a smattering of drunken laughter.

"What do you mean enough!" her father wheezed. "We've had a wedding, and all we need now is a bedding!" The men cheered, ale sloshing down their arms as they raised their glasses.

"I agreed to a wedding, not a bedding ceremony." The King in the North was at ease, arms locked behind him as he stared her father down. "I'll take her to our rooms."

Silence permeated the room, men on each side waiting for the other's response. Finally, her father answered.

"Very well. I will need those sheets though. I need to hang them from the towers. My daughter's cunt, broken in by a king!"

The men cheered and Robb eyed them all with distaste, walking over to Shirei and taking her arm. "My Queen, are you ready?"

He had misunderstood. It wasn't her brothers she wanted protection from. It was him. She understood her brothers, what each of them wanted from her. It was him she was afraid of.

Her eyes found Della. Despite Della being her niece they were close in age, only two years apart. Della was the one she confided her secrets and wishes to, all her silly wants that she knew would never happen, and Shirei's eyes shuttered.

Shirei was a dead girl walking, Queen of Skin and Bones. Her eyes were no longer for Della. Shirei belonged to the Wolf of the North. To tear and rip and rut. To bleed and torture. Della didn't need to look into the eyes of a dead woman. She was better than that, and she still had time to live.

Shirei's arms trembled, laced together with King Robb Stark's muscular ones. Would he strangle her to death? Punish her for going with her mother?

Or would he do what men seemed to love, rut into her into she was Shirei no more. Only a sack of skin and bones and blood?

She found she didn't care to know.

Robb sighed next to her, racing a hand through his curls. "I know it can be painful the first time, but you will be fine. You're only scaring yourself more, thinking about whatever it is your thinking."

"A bridge for a wife," Shirei whispered. "A wife for a bridge."

"Yes," he agreed, irritated. "A bridge for a wife. But that doesn't matter right now. We are husband and wife and you can't even look at me without falling apart. Shirei, I don't know what you've been told about me but I am not a monster."

He stopped, and she realized they were in front of their door and her time had run out. Shirei didn't have pride. She had given it up long ago for survival, so her tears did not shame her. She said nothing as he carefully nudged her into the room, nor as he closed the door and sat her on the bed. Her eyes remained on the floor. Tracing out shadows and searching for lines, waiting for her mind to take her to that place where things didn't hurt so much. The bed dipped next to her and he touched her hair, twisting it back and forth between nimble fingers. He traced it down to the bottom where he cupped his hands around hers.

"You are afraid," he said finally. "It makes sense. You don't know me. You only know of me, and most of the things they say aren't true."

She remained silent, lips pressed together and eyes tracing. Never stopping.

"What have you been told about me?"

Shirei flinched. There was no way for her to answer this without getting hurt. She decided to tell the truth. Her silence and lies had done nothing for her. "My brother's said you turn into a wolf."

A smile graced his face. "I'm afraid not, I do have a direwolf."

"They say you're a ghost."

He shook his head. "I think you and I both know that to be untrue."

"They said," she trailed off, losing her voice. "They said nothing will be left of me once you've finished. That all of me will be on that blanket they hang from the towers."

Fury coursed through his eyes, she could feel him tense next to her, muscles bunching together and hard against her. She had angered him, and now she would pay for it.

As if he could read her thoughts he stopped, clenching his jaw and attempting to hide his irritation. "I'm not angry with you. I'm angry at them. You have nothing to fear from me."

That is what the guard Lothar told his wife every time he hurt her. Shirei would not fall for it.

Robb Starks hands cupped her face, forcing her to look at him. Her eyes danced back and forth, unsure where she should look before settling on his nose. He couldn't call her insolent that way.

"You are Queen now. Do you know what that means?"

She cleared her throat. "That I am your wife."

"And?"

She hesitated. "I am your wife?" she repeated.

"It means you are the second most powerful person in the North." Shirei blinked, staring at him in confusion. His eyes held her steadily. "It means the only person that can tell you what to do is me. Your father will never hurt you. Your brothers will never hurt you. No one can hurt you, it would be treason."

"Except you," she said weakly.

He sighed, letting her go and rubbing his face. "Except me," he agreed. "But I won't."

"All men say that," she whispered. "You say it until you get what you want."

"And if all I want is my wife happy?"

She blinked. "You want more than that." If that was what he wanted, which was doubtable.

He stood, walking over to the corner of the room as he undid his shirt, filling a cup with wine and drinking heavily from it. "You are right, of course. I want my sister's back. I want less casualties in this bloody war. I want my little brother to be able to walk again, and for my father to live. But you can't help me get any of that, so I'll settle for you being happy."

"What would me being happy give you?"

He paused, looking over his shoulder to glance at her. "Not everyone has to want something from you."

"You lie."

He turned around, the shirt finally falling to the floor. She kept her eyes on his, not letting them look down. It would only frighten her more. Maybe that was what he wanted.

"I trust Della Brax more than anyone in the world, but we still want things from each other. I want her trust, and she wants mine. She is my niece and we are friends, but we still want things from each other."

"Wanting those things are normal," he pointed out. "But wanting to hurt others and these vengeful things... Shirei I honestly don't know how to keep up with you. You think more differently than anyone I've met before and the only thing I understand when I look at you is that you fear." His hand traced the pattern at her shoulder, eyes thoughtful as he reached back to undo the laces of her dress.

She could hear the frogs from here, drunken yelling from the soldiers outside the window. Far away wolves cried at the moon, and wind whistled through the cracks of her window. She was not here, she was elsewhere. Where she went to when people wanted to hurt her too much. She was the fish in the river, free and unhindered. The young doe grazing in the woods, staying with her flock. She was not Shirei Frey, but something else entirely.

"What is this?" He pulled her out of her thoughts, staring down at her bruised arm and the blood that dotted it. Hosteen's going away present. Many such things had decorated her body during her life. They always made sure the cuts wouldn't scar. Her body did not show her life stories, she only had her memories to rely on. "Who did this?"

He stood her up and the dress pooled around her feet onto the ground. Now she only remained in a thin underdress. She shivered, staring at the hurt that would disappear from her traitorous body. The body that would not show the pain in her.

"Who hurt you?" he demanded, that stoic expression on his face as he looked at the blemish.

She stared at the wall. That list would be endless. She could not even remember all the people that had hurt her.

"From now on if someone hurts you, you will tell me. Do you understand?"

There was steel in his voice and there was nothing to do but answer. So she bleated the word he wanted to hear most and he relaxed, whispering in her ear things she couldn't hear. That she refused to listen to. She stared at the ceiling as her underdress was taken off her, and as Robb's pants slid to the ground. She followed the cracks as he touched her body, pressing himself against her. She went to the special place where things hurt less, where she could ignore the feeling of something foreign ripping its way into her body.

But it wasn't working. It hurt too much, and the pain didn't stop. She whimpered into his shoulder, fists clenched together as she bore this new hurt that would disappear like all the others. He liked it, she could see that much despite her tears. He whispered something against her and she strained to hear.

"You are mine. You are mine, and no one will hurt you again."

It was spoken like a promise, something that wasn't meant to be broken, and Shirei wiped her tears.

She finally understood what he wanted from her.

If you can't tell yet, I won't be perfectly following the original story lines. I picked Shirei as she is a Frey where there is not much known about her, so it seemed pointless to create a whole new OC character. I also pick and choose between the show and the books.

If anyone is interested in being a beta please contact me.