The Archer (The Blood Realm Series Book 3) (21 page)

Don’t be a cad.

He pushed those thoughts from his head, a tiny voice promising him that he would consider them in more detail later. He watched her carefully as he shifted his weight with her movements, fighting to keep her down, but not imprisoned. He wanted to contain her, but not hurt her.

“Marian, listen to me.” He kept his voice low, soothing. “I’m sorry, Marian. Do you hear me? I’m sorry.”

She ignored him, didn’t even seem to hear him. Her head snapped up, teeth bared, ready to bite him. He scrambled to keep his flesh out of the way without falling into the same trap of leaning his full weight forward, cursing when she bucked her hips again and nearly threw him over her head.

“It’s possible I may have over-stepped my bounds,” he grunted. “Truth is no excuse for rudeness, so I am often told. I meant no harm.”

Her struggles slowed, eventually stopped, but the red glow in her eyes remained, her stare like twin coals blazing in an open oven. Her lips moved and he leaned a little closer to hear her.

“They loved me.”

She didn’t say who, but she didn’t have to. It might have been wiser to go along with whatever she said, say whatever it took to calm her down, but he couldn’t quite make himself do it. Marian’s delusions were hurting her, even if she couldn’t see it. Facing unpleasant truths was the only way to live through them. Not just survive them, but
live
through them.

“I’m sure they did, in their own way.”

She closed her eyes and turned her head to press her cheek against the grass. Her arms grew limp in his grasp and she lay like a broken doll, wide eyes unblinking, staring into the night. Her breathing shuddered and slowed until her chest rose and fell with a smooth, steady rhythm once again.

Robin eased his weight off her, watching her arms carefully for any telltale muscle twitch that might alert him that she was about to reach for him, attack him. The nerves in his legs trembled with awareness, ready to stop her if she tried to buck him off, tried to run again.

She remained calm and he shifted into a sitting position beside her. Marian rolled to her side, curled up to hold her knees against her chest. Robin’s brain played tricks on him, and for a moment he imagined the pool of her red skirts was a spreading puddle of blood, that she was curled up not in mental pain, but physical agony. He blinked, shoving that imagery away.

“They did love me, they just wanted more for me then what they thought I was creating for myself. They were afraid of what my life would be like if I followed the wrong path.”

“My mother used to say something very similar.” Robin propped his chin on one hand, his elbow resting on his knee. An image of his mother hovered before him, her long golden hair flowing to her hips, every lock bedecked with fresh flowers and precious stones. Her dress a glorious ball gown that hugged her tiny waist, squeezed her delicate, bare shoulders, and cascaded down to the floor in a glittering waterfall of greens and blues found only in the most pristine parts of nature. Tatania in all her summer beauty.

“She used to tell me that if I continued my ‘childish pursuits’ then I would ostracize myself from those of our people who could benefit me. She warned me that the path I was on would lead to the very bottom of our court, would cost me the safety and success that power and high-standing could offer.”

He met Marian’s eyes again, encouraged to find they were once again the same green orbs he’d grown so accustomed to, only a hint of fire dancing in the centers. “My foster mother, on the other hand, encouraged me to be exactly who I wanted to be. She told me the only true measure of success is happiness. If what you are doing makes you happy, then that is precisely what you should be doing.”

Marian’s brow furrowed and she sat up, her movements sluggish as if waking from a dream. Her lips moved, but suddenly she froze. Her eyes widened and her hand flew back, touching her back. Anguish creased her forehead and she sucked in a breath.

“What’s wrong?”

“My bow. My arrows—they’re gone.”

She said it the way most noblewomen would whisper of a missing gem, a priceless family heirloom. It made him like her more.

“Come on then,” he said, getting to his feet. He offered her a hand and she stared at it before planting her hands on the grass and pushing herself up. He grinned.
That’s the spirit.

He started off toward the forest, scanning the ground as he went. She fell into step beside him, not so close as to give the impression they were a couple out on a romantic midnight walk, but close enough that they could continue carrying on their conversation if they so desired.

Robin lost track of time rather quickly, absorbed in the tricky task that was locating a bow and quiver specifically colored to blend in with the forest in said forest—at night.

“You’re adopted?”

Her voice held the slight monotone that suggested she was still absorbed in her search, but there was a definite curiosity there too. Robin nodded without taking his eyes off the forest floor.

“In a manner of speaking. My mother felt it was best to distance herself from me as much as possible. She got rather tired of ‘making excuses’ for me.” He shrugged. “I think I embarrass her. In any case, Dubheasa, my foster mother, felt no such embarrassment. Quite the contrary, she enjoys my escapades nearly as much as I do and she often offers ideas during tea, proposals for how I could ‘wring even more fun out of life,’ as she puts it.”

He scratched at his wrist, then winced as he remembered his self-inflicted injury. Blood smeared his pants as he wiped his fingers off. “When you hunt, you look happy—excited and at peace all at once. You run through the forest like it’s your true home, and it welcomes you.” He risked a glance at her and for a moment the intense concentration on her face as she searched for her bow reminded him of the look she’d sometimes got when she was hunting him.
Is it odd that I miss being hunted?

Shrugging off that thought, he continued. “Then you go back to your manor. I watch the light bleed from your eyes and your shoulders slump as though someone’s laid a lodestone on your back. You walk to your house like a woman going to the gallows.”

“And you want to know why I’m so miserable at home, is that it? Why I can’t be happy in the lap of luxury as you put it?” She scooped up a dry stick from the ground and snapped it in two, throwing the broken pieces into the brush as if they’d personally offended her.

Robin frowned and tore his attention away from the tempting skin of her throat, the graceful line of her jaw that led to soft red lips. There was something so attractive about her when she was annoyed. “No. I want to know why you keep going back.”

Her brow furrowed and she took her eyes off the ground for a moment to look at him. “What do you mean?”

“You have money, yes, but you don’t seem to really want it. You don’t want the land, you don’t want the responsibility, you clearly don’t want the people. Why don’t you just take what you need and go live in the forest? You could feed yourself easily enough and you could sell furs or meat to make the living you want. Why do you keep going back to a life that makes you miserable?”

She pulled away then, and it was more than just a physical withdrawal. She turned her face, hiding those expressive features from his scrutiny. “My parents—”

“Your parents are dead.” She flinched, but he didn’t back off, didn’t let her retreat. He took her hand, forcing her to stop and stand with him, ignoring the blood on his palm as he brought her hand to his chest. “You can’t please them now, so it’s an excellent time to stop trying. Please yourself, Marian. Be happy.”

He’d half-expected her to jerk her hand away, maybe slap him for good measure. At the very least she should have taken the opportunity to call him a child, shout at him for caring only about pleasure, shirking responsibility or some such nonsense. Instead, she stared at her hand held over his heart. One finger slowly extended, caressing the leather of his vest, brushing the end of the lace that fastened it.

It wasn’t a sexual gesture, and yet Robin’s nerves sizzled to life, every fiber of his being hyper-aware of her nearness, of her willing touch. She curled that finger away from him, clenched it into a fist, and he felt the withdrawal as if her fingers were attached to something inside him. It was a strange sensation, and he pushed it away to consider later.

After what felt like an eternity, she looked up at him. Her chest rose and fell a little faster and she swallowed twice before speaking.

“Do you like who you are?”

Her voice held a note of an emotion he couldn’t quite identify and he held her hand a little tighter, some instinct telling him she was slipping away, that he was losing her. “Yes.”

“Then you can be who you are and be happy. You can choose a life without guilt.” She shook her head. “Even if I were to do as you say and live the life that would please me, follow my own pleasures, I would not be happy. I could not find satisfaction in being myself because I do not like who I am.”

The urge to brush her hair behind her ear became too much and he gave in, relishing the silky texture, the cool shell of her ear. “Marian, love, how do you know? You’ve never been who you are.”

The last sentence drew her eyes to his, had her staring at him with an unsettling intensity. She held that stare for a long time, as if she were searching for something in his eyes. There was a yearning in her face, a temptation to believe what he said, but underneath it was a sadness so deep she was drowning in it. And he had no idea how to save her.

When she finally spoke, her voice was gentle, resigned. “I cannot give you what you want, Robin Hood. Release me from my promise, and from your company. Give me the year to pay you back—a year during which I will not see you and you will not follow me, or spy on me in any way. Believe me when I say I will never be more than an annoyance to you, a frustrating refusal to be what you seem to want me to be so badly. If you truly care for me as you pretend to, then you will trust me. And you will leave me alone.”

He should have said yes. There was a seriousness in her face that couldn’t be pretended, a seriousness he felt down to the core of his being. She believed she could not change, believed that she could not be happy. Whatever her secret was, whatever she was underneath that human façade, it was something she didn’t want to be. Didn’t want to face. Who was he to force it out of her, just for his own satisfaction?

“Come back to me tomorrow night,” he said finally. “I will give you my answer then.”

Chapter Fifteen

Mac shot to his feet, and his chair flew back and tipped over, landing on the wood floor with a loud crash. “You are certain. Absolutely certain. You saw it with your own eyes?”

The wolf put a paw forward, silver-furred head rising to look him in the eye. “I did. We followed Marian when she left at sunset and as you suspected, she went right to Robin Hood. She met him in the forest and then he took her to a hill where there were two men waiting.”

“What other men? Who were they?
What
were they?” Mac planted his hands on the table, staring down at his precious map, his hands trembling with the rush of adrenaline burning through his veins. He was so close he could taste it. “Where were they?”

Claws clicked against the wooden floorboards as the wolf trotted to the table. It rose on hind legs, its body large enough that it could easily arch its neck over the table to look at the map. One paw groped forward and pressed against the map over the relief of a hill in what was nearly the very heart of the forest that formed the western border of the county. “There.”

Mac stared at the dots that marked confirmed Robin Hood sightings. There were scarcely any pins near the area the wolf had indicated. Either he had not managed to locate those who had encountered the fey in that area, or Robin Hood had the woman somewhere he did not usually haunt.
But why would he do that?

“You’re certain there were two men with him? And they remained there even after Marian’s arrival?”

The wolf fell back onto all fours and sat, curling its bushy tail around its paws. “Yes.”

A romantic tryst would not require the presence of others. Unless…

A smattering of images skittered over his brain, twisted images of the erotic hedonism some breeds of fey were known for. He shook his head sharply to dislodge the filth from his mind. Robin Hood had never shown any inclination toward that flavor of sin. There was no reason to poison his mind with such thoughts until there was evidence to force the matter. The buzzing in his ears grew louder, drowning his thoughts. He palmed the iron medallion around his neck, smothering it as though he could somehow quiet that infernal hum.

“Are you all right?”

The wolf’s voice was wary more than concerned. Mac ignored the question and jabbed a finger at the beast. “What were these other men? If they were indeed men?”

The wolf snorted. “We didn’t get close enough to tell. It would have been too dangerous, we would have been spotted, scented maybe.”

“So you have no useful information on them, on their nature or their relationship to the fey?” He closed his free hand into a fist, skin itching to feel the constraints of his forged claws. What good was it to have spies if the information they gathered was so incomplete as to be nearly useless? The buzzing in his ears grew louder still.

Silver ears flattened against the wolf’s head and its black lips curled up, flashing glistening white fangs. “We gathered what information we could under the constraints
you
gave us. Avoid detection—that was your primary concern for us.” It shook its head, the thick fur of its scruff standing out, making it look bigger.

The movement drew Mac’s eyes to the wolf’s neck. He went still as he noticed the fur stood up with no impediment, nothing there to hold it down. “Where is the iron I tied around your neck?”

The wolf froze, its snarl momentarily forgotten. “I removed it before the reconnaissance.”