Beguiling Wolf

Chapter 15

A shadow creeping around his stormy presence caught his attention and Robert snorted in amusement.

"You're one of mine then?" Robert boomed and the young lad jumped and spun to stare at him with wide stormy blue eyes, a wolf by his side.

"eh, y-yes milord- your grace-uh-"Gendry sputtered looking around as if for salvation or to throw himself off the side of the boat.

"Just call me Robert or Father, son, fuckin' had it with that shite, never shoulda taken the crown, should have left become a sellsword. All I'm good for is swinging the hammer" Robert growled, his large hands clenching and unclenching. He would have destroyed something but being on a boat and his own...fitness stopped him, revulsion stirred in his stomach.

"Ah, yes R-Robert?" Gendry asked questioningly, and Robert snorted, seeing the lad in front of him Robert didn't know how he hadn't seen it before. How Joffery was never his son, Gendry was tall and broad with coal black hair and storm blue eyes. He was the mirror of a young Robert Baratheon, the image of the warrior come again, and the hammer by his side only solidified the image in his mind.

Joffrey had been blond of hair and his mother's green eyes with that vindictive gleam that always made Robert think the small amount of Targaryen blood in his veins had sprouted in his son and made another mad king. Lithe and weak, with no strength of the Stormlands, no strength of the Baratheon's and instead of a fury reminiscent of the storms that little shite had mewled like a fuckin' quim. Hiding behind his mother's skirts. Robert had been shamed by him and was grateful he was no Baratheon but Tommen and Myrcella hurt. His sweet little boy and his golden doe but Robert could not claim either of them.

Nymeria rubbed up against Gendry who absently petted her head, the nerves being soothed, and he turned back to his royal father who had a pained look in his eyes a fog of old memories.

"I see a wolf has taken a liking to you as well" Robert teased a genuine smile flitted across his face- Gods when was the last time he had smiled so genuinely? In the presence of the Starks? Maybe but he'd been in too much of a drunken stupor to remember, the shakes and sweat was difficult to deal with but there was no drink on board and Robert was glad for it.

"I'm only taking care of Nymeria for the Lady Arya", Gendry huffed, but the tips of his ears turned pink.

"And the other wolves?" Robert asked and Gendry shrugged.

"They prefer their own company" Gendry admitted as he fiddled with the handle of his hammer, just how was he supposed to talk to this man? Who had become a myth, the warrior come again, a conqueror, a King...and his father? Gendry felt overwhelmed.

"Do you know how to swing that thing?" Robert asked his bastard son gesturing to his weapon and briefly wondered where his own was, a beast of a thing that most men couldn't lift, Ned had to use both hands, but Robert had been capable of swinging it with one hand, dancing with ease around his enemies and crushing them like gnats. Gods he missed that.

"Yes," Gendry said shortly, puffing up in annoyance; he knew how to fight, how to swing a hammer. It kept people away from you in fleabottom if they knew you could brawl, made you less of a target. Gendry had grown up with very little but always fought for what little he had...if he didn't, it meant death.

"Properly", Robert corrected with an amused laugh as he clapped a hand around his son's shoulder and dragged him onto the deck- he might be a fat bastard currently but Robert's strength had never waned "Come on, I'll teach you."

It was time Robert got back into shape and time to have at least one son competent in fighting.

"I need you to go north," Robb told Jon quietly standing in the frozen courtyard of Winterfell, surrounded by his-father's- his? Bannermen, the decision hadn't been made yet, father was alive but currently missing, so Robb was in charge but only until father returned. And he would Robb reassured himself. He would find father, save his sisters, bring them home, back to the North and then they'd never leave again. Lyra was right, wolves didn't go south, they shouldn't go south.