A Game of Thrones 4-Book Bundle

Lordsport,” he
told her father. “We’ll be below, in my cabin.” He led the girl away aft,
while her father watched them go in sullen silence.
    The cabin was the captain’s, in truth, but it had been turned over to Theon’s
use when they sailed from
Seagard. The

captain’s daughter had not been turned over to his use, but she had come to his
bed willingly enough all the same. A cup of wine, a few whispers, and there she
was. The girl was a shade plump for his taste, with skin as splotchy as
oatmeal, but her breasts filled his hands nicely and she had been a maiden the
first time he took her. That was surprising at her age, but Theon found it
diverting. He did not think the captain approved, and that was amusing as well,
watching the man struggle to swallow his outrage while performing his
courtesies to the high lord, the rich purse of gold he’d been promised never
far from his thoughts.
    As Theon shrugged out of his wet cloak, the girl said, “You must be so happy
to see your home again, milord. How many years have you been away?”
    â€œTen, or close as makes no matter,” he told her. “I was a boy of ten when I
was taken to Winterfell as a ward of Eddard Stark.” A ward in name, a hostage
in truth. Half his days a hostage . . . but no longer. His life
was his own again, and nowhere a Stark to be seen. He drew the captain’s
daughter close and kissed her on her ear. “Take off your cloak.”
    She dropped her eyes, suddenly shy, but did as he bid her. When the heavy
garment, sodden with spray, fell from her shoulders to the deck, she gave him a
little bow and smiled anxiously. She looked rather stupid when she smiled, but
he had never required a woman to be clever. “Come here,” he told
her.
    She did. “I have never seen the Iron Islands.”
    â€œCount yourself fortunate.” Theon stroked her hair. It was

fine and dark, though the wind had made a tangle of it. “The islands are stern
and stony places, scant of comfort and bleak of prospect. Death is never far
here, and life is mean and meager. Men spend their nights drinking ale and
arguing over whose lot is worse, the fisherfolk who fight the sea or the
farmers who try and scratch a crop from the poor thin soil. If truth be told,
the miners have it worse than either, breaking their backs down in the dark,
and for what? Iron, lead, tin, those are our treasures. Small wonder the
ironmen of old turned to raiding.”
    The stupid girl did not seem to be listening. “I could go ashore with you,”
she said. “I would, if it please you . . .”
    â€œYou could go ashore,” Theon agreed, squeezing her breast, “but not with me,
I fear.”
    â€œI’d work in your castle, milord. I can clean fish and bake bread and churn
butter. Father says my peppercrab stew is the best he’s ever tasted. You could
find me a place in your kitchens and I could make you peppercrab
stew.”
    â€œAnd warm my bed by night?” He reached for the laces of her bodice and began
to undo them, his fingers deft and practiced. “Once I might have carried you
home as a prize, and kept you to wife whether you willed it or no. The ironmen
of old did such things. A man had his rock wife, his true bride, ironborn like
himself, but he had his salt wives too, women captured on raids.”
    The girl’s eyes grew wide, and not because he had bared her breasts. “I would
be your salt wife, milord.”
    â€œI fear those days are gone.” Theon’s finger circled one

heavy teat, spiraling in toward the fat brown nipple. “No longer may we ride
the wind with fire and sword, taking what we want. Now we scratch in the ground
and toss lines in the sea like other men, and count ourselves lucky if we have
salt cod and porridge enough to get us through a winter.” He took her nipple
in his mouth, and bit it until she gasped.
    â€œYou can put it in me again, if it please you,” she whispered in his ear as
he sucked.
    When he raised his head from her breast, the skin was dark red where his mouth
had marked her. “It would please me to teach you something new. Unlace me and
pleasure me with your mouth.”
    â€œWith my mouth?”
    His thumb brushed lightly over her full lips. “It’s what those lips were made
for, sweetling. If you were my salt wife, you’d do as I