The Winter Wolf (Cregan Stark)

XIV

Daemon didn't know if Cregan would be rough with her or cruel to her, he didn't know if he would ever let her visit Dragonstone again or have her family come to stay when she missed them. He hadn't bothered about the details, all of which would mean the difference between Visenya being the best Lady Stark Winterfell had ever seen and a dragon chained in the North.

"You're Lady Stark... you don't have to do anything you don't want to." he nodded, a sense of confidence about him when he said it that made Visenya want to climb from her bed and wrap herself up in him.

"But you come as far as Moat Cailin with us." he added, her eyes snapping back to his from where they had drifted down south of his chest.

"What?" she questioned.

Cregan leaned forward, his fists coming down on the bed either side of her and looming over her. Times like this she realised why people called him the Wolf of the North and why rumours of him being a beast circulated the capital. Visenya was not a slight woman but she felt it with him. 

"We take you as far as Moat Cailin and we make camp there. You can continue on Ghost and if you're not back within an agreed upon days, then we act."

Visenya's heart thumped in her chest. Of course, he would not allow her to leave indefinitely and without protection. She had imagined that he would not let her out of his men's sights for the purpose of keeping her North. But she hadn't imagined that he would come with her, even if a part of the way.

"But..." she protested, wondering aloud. But his lips on hers shushed her confusion.

"We were going to make camp at Moat Cailin anyway for when the Winter hits, princess. We don't want to be kept North by the Winter so when the time comes, we'll be nearby and we'll be ready."

Visenya felt a smile at her lips.

"The Northern forces are going to make camp at Moat Cailin and blockade the North?" She asked.

Cregan nodded, his tongue pushing against the inside of his cheek in a cocky smile.

She grinned.

"That was my idea." she stated.

And he grinned back.

"Yes, it was."

Not only was her lord husband allowing her at war councils, but he was also listening to her.

Visenya had put it to them that setting up base for the North at Moat Cailin would essentially barricade off the North. It would make the Barrowlands, the Rills, the fishing villages of the coast west of Winterfell unreachable by land. It made White Harbour, Widow's Watch, the Karrhold and the Dreadfort and Winterfell itself only accessible by ships and attacking by sea. The Blacks had the Velaryon fleet as well as the modest amount of ships the North maintained a secret. 

Dragons might be sent North but the skies would be monitored, none would pass North without their knowledge and if they did that was what Visenya and Ghost were for too.

"You like my straetgies, Lord Stark?" Visenya said low, knowing that when she spoke like that he shivered as if the hairs on the back of his neck stood up.

Her hands looped up around his neck and her fingers played with the hair that grew longer and curled at the ends.

"We'll leave for Moat Cailin before nightfall."

He said, knowing the plans by heart as he had thought them through until his head ached. But the way his wife pulled at his shoulders and pushed herself up until she was clinging to him like an animal climbing a tree, he couldn't think of Moat Cailin only the beautiful, soft and heavenly smelling princess who nuzzled at his neck.