The Archer (The Blood Realm Series Book 3)

by Jennifer Blackstream

  A small smile spread over Marian’s lips, excitement flickering over her nerves like chain lightning. She put a hand on a low branch of the bush in front of her and gave it a few quick jerks.

  The assailants immediately froze, heads swiveling to face the rustling. The leader smacked the nearest one to him on the stomach and jerked his head in the other direction. The bested wrestler got one last kick in and then they all took off running.

  “Make sure he’s all right,” Marian breathed without taking her eyes from the fleeing thieves. “I’ll be back.”

  She didn’t wait for an answer. A howl echoed inside her as she took off running.

  Chasing.

  Hunting.

  Chapter Twelve

  I almost had her!

  Robin’s fists shook at his sides as Marian took off in pursuit of the assailants. She moved with more grace than any human would be capable of, running with her body tilted forward, gliding as if she had muscles in places she shouldn’t. It was further proof that she was indeed more than human—but the list of creatures beyond the veil with enhanced agility was as long as the sheriff’s list of grievances against Robin and his kind.

  “You almost lost control,” he whispered after her. “I could almost see it beneath your skin. Your temper would have told me everything if I could have just pushed you a little farther.” He crossed his arms and dropped his gaze to the injured man on the ground. “And then you had to ruin it.”

  The man groaned and rolled onto his side, a lock of brown hair falling over his swollen eye. The grass beneath him was smeared with his blood, more blood than it was healthy for a human to lose. A wet rattle wheezed from his chest and he coughed, choking on more of his precious life fluid as he spit it into the grass.

  If I leave him, and he dies, she’ll be cross with me. And not the sort of cross that will peel back that infuriating human mask, but rather the kind that inspires her to shoot at harmless benefactors.

  He mulled that over for a moment, weighing his options. If he left now, he might catch up to her, perhaps even discover her in an inhuman act that would reveal her true nature to him once and for all.

  And then what?

  He drummed his fingers against his biceps. The hoodoo-whatsit had promised Marian would interest him. Ostensibly a god would mean more by “interest” than a mere moment of revelation, the surprise of the unveiling. It would make more sense to think that the not-the-god had believed Robin would continue to be interested in Marian after rooting out her secret. Which meant he had to consider not only how to reveal it, but also had to position himself in the best possible way to appreciate whatever was revealed.

  A fact he should have considered before he’d tried attacking her as a means of forcing out her secret.

  He sniffed, remembered his bloody nose, and touched the injury with the tips of his fingers. It was healing, but still tender to the touch. The blood on his cuff reminded him he had a bite on his wrist as well now, and now that he thought of it, the punctures there started to itch. He frowned as he gave in to the urge to scratch, only slightly mollified to find those wounds too were healing. She was violent, that was for sure. If this kept up, he was going to start charging her interest based on the injuries she inflicted.

  An unpleasant rattle in the downed man’s chest drew Robin’s attention back to the matter at hand. One thing could be certain at least. If he let this man die, Marian would either kill him—or try—or she would continue her irrational campaign to be rid of him. And it was getting rather tiresome to be made to feel unwanted.

  With a sigh, he knelt on the ground next to the injured man and began a systematic assessment of his injuries. “If it were me lying on the ground bloody and broken, she’d have left me.”

  The man didn’t respond, his body disturbingly still, his skin deathly pale. Robin frowned and leaned over, peering at his face. Deep lines still framed his eyes and his face was frozen in a semi-unconscious grimace of pain. Sweat glistened on his temples, dampening his hair into slick, dark curls.

  “Still alive then.” He glanced around him, taking quick stock of the plants he had to work with. Healing others wasn’t one of his gifts, but like most fey, he knew enough about herbs to make a fair go of patching up the worst of the injuries. At the very least he was confident he could keep the man alive until a human medic could see to him. With one last longing glance in the direction Marian had fled in, he hauled himself to his feet and began to search for plants he could use.

  “She has a temper. Gets excited at the smell of blood. Likes to hunt. Runs faster and with more grace than most creatures.” He lifted the leaves of a nearby guilder rose bush, then dismissed it. “Doesn’t narrow it down though, does it? Goblins, ogres, shifters of most breeds… They all like a bloody pursuit, don’t they?”

  Something tickled the back of his neck. Not a touch, but a feeling. The unmistakable sensation of being watched. Power warmed his fingertips, waking the cauldron of memories that fed his glamours. It churned inside him as he slowly turned around, ready to veil himself and flee if needed.

  A small ball of light hovered several feet off the ground in the shadows under a nearby willow, its spherical body no more than a warm yellow glow. It bobbed as if in greeting and floated a few inches closer.

  The tension melted from his shoulders and he shook his hands, banishing the readied glamour. “I thought will o’ wisps preferred bogs? Aren’t you a little out of your territory?”

  The ball of light shot up a few indignant inches, lines of crimson shooting through its yellow glow, shedding stray campfire sparks on the ground.

  Robin held up his hands. “Sorry, didn’t mean to offend. You’re right, you can go where you please.” He paused and gave the annoyed fey a considering look. “I don’t suppose you know where I might find some spindle berry?”

  Colors swirled until the crimson was absorbed by the former buttery yellow. The will o’ wisp danced about like a seed on the wind for a bit, then meandered through a few trees. Robin followed amiably, and it stopped less than twenty paces away to hover over a small grouping of bushes. Upon closer inspection, they turned out to be spindle berries.

  “Excellent. This is precisely what I needed.” He plucked a few of the leaves that held the best color and veins thick with nutrients, thought about it, then gathered some of the brittle stems as well. “Well, I don’t need them,” he muttered to himself. “What I need is to be following that red-headed secret-keeper.”

  A distinct aura of disapproval buzzed against the edge of his consciousness. He glanced over his shoulder to find the will o’ wisp swirling in the air, gentle circles doing a fair impression of shaking its head.

  “Don’t give me that look, you don’t know anything about it.” He squeezed one of the leaves he'd gathered, wetting his fingers with cool, green liquid. He started back toward the injured man, using the juice from the plant to clean his own injuries as he went. His nose burned as he dabbed at the dried blood, and a sneeze overcame him. When he recovered, he found the will o’ wisp hovering over the fallen man, its colors dancing in a kaleidoscope of emotions. The undulating aura gave Robin the sensation of a hundred tiny insects flying full speed into his exposed skin all at once. Not painful, but annoying.

  “Quit shouting at me.” He fell to his knees beside the wrestler, giving the bobbing annoyance a dark look before turning his full attention to the man’s wounds.

  As he’d expected, most of the injuries consisted of bruising and cuts that were not deep, but bled enough for ten. Head wounds in particular were notorious for looking worse than they were. Still, the man’s face was paler now, his breathing shallow. Robin shifted uneasily as he crushed more of the spindle leaves and set to work cleaning the cuts and spreading the nectar in a thin layer over the bruises.

  “He might have internal bleeding. There won’t be anything I can do about that.”

  He waited for the will o’ wisp to berate him for not being quicker about the man’s care, but he f
elt nothing. That was just as well since his own conscience seemed more than willing to supply enough guilt on its own.

  A wet gasp suddenly erupted from the man’s lips, his brown eyes flying open. He stared at Robin, but there was nothing in his eyes to suggest he was registering what he was seeing. His arms spasmed on the ground as he fought to raise them. He managed to press his fingers to some of his wounds, but they were slippery with blood and spindle leaf juice and his hands slipped off, his arms thudding back on the ground. Robin laid a gentle hand on his arm, stopping him from raising it again.

  “Quiet now, you’re all right. Be still and let me help you.”

  The man didn’t respond. His eyes fluttered closed again, his body easing back onto the ground with the weight of the unconscious. Robin tensed, afraid he’d lost him. He put his ear near the man’s mouth, exhaling his relief when the man’s breath ghosted against his face. He sat back and resumed his care with more diligence, inspecting every cut and every bruise, prodding the flesh where the bruising seemed the worst to check for broken bones.

  When he was done, the bleeding had stopped and the man’s chest was rising and falling in shallow, but even breaths. Robin’s fingers were covered in his blood, but he didn’t want to leave him again to seek out water to wash them. The hairs on the back of his neck rose, alerting him that the will o’ wisp had floated closer, was hovering just behind his shoulder.

  “It is conceivable that perhaps, maybe, you were right.” Every word was pulled from the depths of his being, the effort made possible only by the sight of the man before him, the man who could have died. Without meaning to, Robin put a hand on the man’s neck, needing to feel his pulse beneath the pads of his fingers.

  The will o’ wisp kept its silence, even its emotions quiet. Waiting.

  “That woman is a distraction.” He slid his fingers from the man’s pulse and settled back on the ground, legs folded beneath him, arms resting on his knees. “Whatever else I am, for now, I am also the protector of this forest. What good am I if I allow men like that to perform such evil? What good am I if I’m so intent on finding her secret that I cannot give a victim the attention he needs?” He shook his head, anger warming his insides. “He should have been my first thought. Not her.”

  Something touched his head. There was a light behind his eyes, a brilliant flash that held a spectrum of vivid colors, and then images exploded in his consciousness.

  Marian running through the forest with her crossbow, chasing the image of a fox he’d glamoured up to cover himself as he led her on a merry hunt. Him demanding she reveal her secret. Her shouting at him to leave her alone, him countering with a promise to haunt her until he discovered what she hid so desperately. Her calling him a selfish child, him insisting that it was her that was useless to others. Two shared kisses.

  A thought beat against his psyche, the will o’ wisp’s attempt to communicate mind-to-mind. The words were there and not there, hovering just out of reach. Lost behind the deluge of images it projected.

  But the images were not just flickers of memory, reminders of experiences past. Robin’s brain didn’t work like that, didn’t settle for such fleeting glimpses. Instead, every image was seized, stretched, colored, felt, lived. Pain radiated from every nerve ending, lacing over his skull in a spider web of agony that threatened to crush him, to drive him mad as he experienced all the events simultaneously. Someone was shouting and Robin realized it was him. Blackness ate the edges of his mental vision and he shook his head, fighting to keep from passing out. He reached inside himself for his center of calm, the white space he retreated to when the details became too much, the sensations too overwhelming.

  Time passed, and when he registered the sensation of cool grass against the back of his head, he had no idea if he’d been lying there for a minute or an hour. The will o’ wisp flickered above him like a candle flame in a wind tunnel, panic arcing out of it like mini bolts of orange lightning.

  “Calm yourself.”

  The sound of his voice froze the little fey and it dropped like a falling star to hover an inch over his nose. He crossed his eyes, blinked, and shook his head. “A little space, please.”

  The will o’ wisp rose no more than an inch, its panic a strange tingling against his skin.

  “It would behoove us both if, in the future, you do not attempt to merge your mind with mine. My psyche is ill-suited to communication by images and memories.”

  The will o’ wisp was still panicking, but now there was confusion mixed in with it, an extra bob to its little dance of hysterics.

  Robin started to sit up, but the pain in his skull quickly convinced him to lie back down. He put a hand to his forehead and tried to hold his brains in.

  “My mind works a little differently than others. Even two memories at once can be overwhelming if I am caught unprepared.”

  That was an understatement. The amount of details that had surged over him with the will o’ wisp’s little mind meld still swarmed in his head like insects raging over a disturbed hive. He drew several deep, calm breaths, gently extricating himself from the flood.

  It wasn’t until he’d sat up and was massaging feeling back into his temples that the implication of what he’d just seen hit him. He dropped his hands, staring at the will o’ wisp with mounting fury.

  “You’ve been spying on me.”

  The will o’ wisp grew still. Its yellowish orange light flickered with pink and then back to yellow. Little sparks flew from its center.

  “I was not spying on Marian, I was investigating her.” He snatched up a handful of grass, tearing the slender blades to pieces as he glared at the fey. “You were spying.”

  It didn’t take words or a mind meld to convey the will o’ wisp’s thoughts on his distinction. Robin scowled. He opened his mouth to tell the fey exactly what it could do with its opinions, but the rustling of leaves drew his attention to the forest behind him.

  Marian stepped out of the foliage like a queen entering her court. Her green eyes shone as though lit from within, her smooth lips pulled into the first true smile he’d seen on her beautiful face. It made her more than beautiful, it made her radiant. Blood spatter painted her skin and gown in dots ranging in size from tiny blips to melting puddles, but if she noticed, she didn’t care.

  She floated forward, swaying, almost dancing, and threw something to the ground. It landed with a thud near the still-unconscious man’s head and Robin arched an eyebrow as he recognized it. It was the sack of gold the men had run off with.

  “How is he?” She gestured at the man with one hand, long pale fingers caressing the air.

  “He’ll live.” He gestured over his shoulder at the will o’ wisp with his thumb. “Unfortunately, we’ve picked up a visitor. It refuses to leave.”

  The anger he’d been expecting to tighten Marian’s lovely face never came. She beamed at the will o’ wisp like a drunkard greeting his next glass of whiskey and fluttered those delicate fingers in its direction. “Hello.”

  Robin’s lips parted. She was more than just happy, she was drunk. Drunk off the thrill of the hunt…or a feast of fresh-caught meat, it was difficult to tell. He didn’t see any blood smeared around her mouth to suggest she’d eaten the men she’d taken the gold from, but that didn’t completely eliminate the possibility.

  An idea took root, blossoming to fill Robin’s consciousness with the thrill of an epiphany. “I have a proposal for you, Marian.”

  She sauntered over to a nearby tree, putting her palm against the rough bark, that strange smile still curling her lips. “Oh?”

  “Yes.” He prowled around her, studying her body language, his mind still trying to parse out exactly what had happened during the time they'd been apart. He stopped in front of her, his shoulder brushing the trunk of the tree she’d braced herself against. “Instead of paying me back the four hundred pounds in gold, perhaps you would be interested in working off your debt?”

  Her smile wilted at the edges, her shoul
ders going stiff. Slowly she slid that green gaze toward his eyes, emeralds holding a new light now—the warm flame of anger. In a flash he realized what his offer must have sounded like. He held out a hand to ward off the coming tirade.

  “I am not suggesting that you work off your debt in my bed.”

  “Then I suggest you get to the point and tell me what you did mean.”

  Her voice had taken on a hard edge, slicing away the tantalizing rasp that had been so pleasing to his ear. Robin set his jaw and met her eyes without flinching. “The men you chased down tonight. They are not the only ones who commit acts of evil in this forest.”

  The smile made a brief return to her lips, tugging at the corner of her mouth. “They won’t be causing any more trouble.”

  Interesting. “But there are others like them who will.” He pointed at the man still lying on the ground, his face smooth with sleep. “Tonight’s events have reminded me of the duties that I have neglected in my…enthusiasm for our acquaintanceship. For nearly a year now, I have taken it as my personal duty to see that these forests do not provide a haven for such threats.”

  Marian pressed her shoulder against the tree and snorted. “You are the threat in this forest. A parasite seeking to attach itself to whatever beast would be most bothered by your presence.”

  Robin narrowed his eyes. “Of the two of us, only you have taken something without giving anything in return. Perhaps you should take a closer look at your own situation before you label me a parasite.”

  Green eyes darkened and her mouth pressed into a thin line, but she didn’t respond. Satisfied he’d made his point, Robin continued. “A large part of my duty to my people involves redistributing wealth in a manner that is healthy for the economy of this kingdom.”