The Archer (The Blood Realm Series Book 3)

by Jennifer Blackstream

  “You know why they did it,” she said quietly. “You know what they wanted to keep you from. Hunting—”

  “It’s not all evil, it doesn’t have to be evil. I hunt animals.”

  “You hunted at night. You know that was risky.”

  “I never hunt on that night.” She clutched her bow to her chest, holding it like some sort of talisman against the wretched emotions attacking her with the same ferocity of any wild animal. “Besides that, the spell—”

  Her eyes widened and she clapped a hand over her own mouth. Ermentrude tensed too, even though Marian knew she didn’t—couldn’t—know about the spell.

  Stop thinking about it. Thinking about it too much will weaken it, might break it. Stop it, stop it, stop it…

  Panic spiked. The more she tried not to think about it, the more it pressed against her consciousness. A tingle echoed from somewhere deep inside her, reverberating through her blood, rippling over her veins. A feeling she hadn’t allowed herself to acknowledge in decades. The tell-tale shiver of magic.

  “Robin Hood seems to make you happy.”

  Marian blinked, Ermentrude’s words almost lost in her state of near-hyperventilation. “What?”

  “Robin Hood.” Ermentrude leaned forward, putting more stress on the words than they deserved. “You like him, he makes you happy. Do I need to play like one of the children? Sing you a little song about the boy who kissed you?”

  Her voice was teasing but there was a weight to her gaze. A silent attempt to communicate something more.

  She’s trying to distract you, you twit. Take the lifeline!

  “Robin Hood, yes! I…” She twisted her hands on her bow, the wood groaning in protest. “I’m not sure there will be any more kisses forthcoming. In the short time I’ve known him, I’ve shot him, broken his ankle, and punched him in the face.”

  The old gardener hummed her approval. “Always good to set the proper tone in the beginning. Fight for the respect you deserve, always.”

  A laugh burst from Marian’s lips. The sound shattered the last of the tension holding her hostage, freed her so she could breathe again. Ermentrude smiled at her and she returned it wholeheartedly.

  “You are a good friend, Ermentrude.”

  The smile on the gardener’s face wilted. She looked away, but not before Marian noticed the stiffening in her shoulders, the melting of the camaraderie that had been slowly building between them. A slither of dread curled inside her stomach.

  “Ermentrude? What’s wrong?”

  The gardener spun so suddenly that Marian fell back a step, dropped her bow. She grabbed both of Marian’s hands in hers, brown eyes boring into her with frightening intensity. “You have to get out of here.”

  “What?”

  “The sheriff was here yesterday. Lady Marian, I didn’t want to tell him anything, but he threatened Patrick. He’s only a boy, and if he were locked up—”

  “Wait, wait, slow down, it’s all right.” Ermentrude’s panic grated against her nerves, threatened the calm she’d only just found. “All right, the sheriff was here. That’s all right, I expected a visit.” She took a deep breath, held it, then let it out slowly through her nose. “I am not the only one to receive help from Robin Hood. The sheriff questions many of them, when he finds them, but he’s never done anything beyond that. There’s no need to panic.”

  Ermentrude’s eyes welled up with tears and she clasped her hands together so tightly her skin mottled.

  “What did you…tell him?” She had to force the words out, didn’t want to hear them herself.

  “I told him…” Ermentrude’s voice broke and she had to clear her throat, try again. “I told him Robin kissed you. That he visited you in your chambers.”

  The world tilted, nearly spilling Marian to the ground. She held tightly to Ermentrude’s hands as if they would center her, keep her from falling off the face of the earth. No. No, no, no, no.

  “Sheriff Mac Tyre’s hatred for Robin Hood is well known. And he is not ignorant of the otherworld. If he thinks there is more between you and Robin Hood than just the loan…”

  “He’ll use me to get to Robin.” Marian groped for the bench, easing herself down before her shaking legs gave out. “Oh, Goddess, what if he had me followed?”

  Ermentrude stiffened at the suggestion. Marian’s stomach sank further, bile coating the back of her throat. For the second time that evening, her head was frozen, unable to look from side to side for fear of what she might see. “He could be having me watched right now.”

  “I haven’t seen anyone,” Ermentrude said quietly, barely moving her mouth.

  “But you wouldn’t, not if they were spying on me. You wouldn’t see anyone or anything until it was too late.” The trees around the property suddenly took on an ominous menace, each one a potential hiding place. They could be behind the thick trunk of the oak in the opposite corner of the garden. They could be nestled amidst the towering rosebushes, tucked underneath the aromatic limbs of the cypress.

  Get a hold of yourself. You are not prey—never prey.

  Marian’s eyesight grew sharper as she slid into a hunter’s mindset, the cold, calculating study of her surroundings for the little details that would reveal her prey. She kept her head still, but slid her gaze back and forth, sweeping over her surroundings with a level of scrutiny beyond human sight.

  You would find them easier if you would just let go a little more…

  She shoved that thought away, sweat breaking out at her temples. No, she had already come far too close. For all she knew, she’d already weakened the sp—

  Stop thinking about it!

  “I can’t go to meet Robin tonight, not when they might follow me.” She retrieved her bow from the ground, giving in to the need to hold it, to reassure herself with its familiar lines. A moment later she scooped up her quiver and slung it onto her back, the welcoming weight of her arrows a powerful comfort. “And I cannot stay here either. Not if he might know…” The sheriff will have no need for evidence or trials if he thinks I’m not human. He’ll lock me up, slap me in irons. I’ll be a prisoner for life. Or dead. Or…

  “Now, now, we don’t even know for sure there’s anyone out there.” Ermentrude’s tone and the tension vibrating in her wide shoulders betrayed her assurance for the lie it was.

  “I can’t take that risk.” She pounded a fist on her thigh. “If only there was someone who could get to Robin, warn him not to come looking for me.”

  Ermentrude grabbed her hand, nearly scaring Marian clean out of her skin. “Maggie.”

  “Who?”

  “Maggie. Our cook. Maybe she can help.”

  “How?”

  “She’s always leaving out offerings for the wee ones. Perhaps she’ll know of some way to get a message to your beau.”

  Marian frowned at the reference to Robin as her beau, but now wasn’t the time to argue such things. Besides, she was having a difficult time processing the burgeoning realization that the people she’d been hiding her true self from for so long seemed rather more comfortable with fey than she could have imagined.

  “Go, go ask Maggie,” Ermentrude urged her. “I’ll stay here and watch to make sure you’re not followed.”

  Marian nodded finally. It was a better plan than she had. The only plan she had. It took more effort than she wanted to admit not to make a run for the house, but then that would put anyone watching her on instant alert.

  Stay calm. Everything is going to be all right.

  If only she could believe that.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “Marian is coming to see you with a will o’ wisp.”

  Robin went still, the fingers that had been coaxing a new string onto his bow growing stiff.

  “Come back tomorrow night. I will give you my answer then.”

  It was time then. His stomach clenched, his mind churning with the subject he’d struggled with most of the night. Release her back into the life that was draining the spirit ou
t of her? Or drag her kicking and screaming into a new one? He abandoned his work on the bow, setting it on the small hand-carved table beside his chair. He had no idea what he was going to say to her.

  Wait a minute…

  He frowned and looked up at Little John. The bear shifter stood with his thick arms crossed over his chest, filling the small frame and blocking most of the light trying to illuminate the small quarters Robin claimed as his own. It was difficult to see him properly in the dimness, especially with the only light source at his back, but Robin could make out that his friend had one thick brown eyebrow arched in a depressingly familiar silent accusation.

  “She’s coming here?”

  Little John nodded.

  Confusion pulled Robin’s brows together and helped distract him from his conundrum. “But she doesn’t know how to get here. And I was under the impression she didn’t fraternize with fey, so what on earth is she doing traveling with a will o’ wisp?”

  “That’s a good question. And here’s another one. Why are there two wolves following her? One silver and one brown and white.”

  Robin drummed the fingers of his right hand on the arm of his chair. It was a flimsy piece of furniture, its simple construction hinting at a temporary purpose. The rap of his fingernails was loud in the small room. “Two wolves, you say? Silver and brown?”

  “Yes. And they’re wearing iron.”

  His hands fell into his lap as he leaned forward. “Wearing iron as in clapped in irons? Stuck in a trap?”

  “No, Robin. Wearing iron like someone deliberately put iron on them to help them fight against a certain person’s glamour.”

  Robin retrieved the bow from the table and resumed fixing the string. The motions were familiar enough to him that he didn’t need to look, could have done it upside-down and blindfolded. “Not the smartest thing he could have done. What need do I have to lay a glamour over the wolves? I’m more than capable of masking my scent, they won’t be able to track me. And the iron has to be driving them half-mad.”

  Little John jabbed a finger in Robin’s direction as he took one large step into the small abode. The cramped space wasn’t kind to his size, and his large foot made contact with the leg of the bed pressed against the wall by the door. If the volume of the thump was any indication, there was a good chance he’d broken a toe. Robin smothered the snicker that threatened to draw the increasingly incensed shifter’s attention and tried to keep his face as blank as possible as Little John turned a dark look on him.

  “Your arrogance will be your downfall. That iron they’re wearing may not break your glamour, but it will give them an edge to overcoming it. They only need a trace of your scent to follow you.”

  “I will be fine.” He rolled his eyes and finished tying off the bowstring, testing the tension with one finger. “What’s wrong with you anyway? You’re angry with me.” He pressed his lips together, killing a smile. “You were angry with me even before you stubbed your toe on my bed.”

  The shifter snatched the bow from Robin’s grasp. Robin startled, taken aback by the violence of the motion and gaped at Little John. The shifter raised the bow as if he would use it as a club, then pressed his lips together and pointed it at Robin instead. “Have you bothered to ask yourself why the wolves are following Marian?”

  Robin put his hands on the arms of his chair, gripping the wood and pulling himself forward. “I don’t have to ask myself that question, I know why they’re following her. Because the cranky sheriff told them to.”

  The bow groaned in Little John’s grasp and Robin raised a hand, mouth opening to warn him to be more gentle. The look on the shifter’s face stopped the words before they could form.

  “And why would the sheriff have her followed?”

  “Because he thinks she’ll lead him to me?” His hand twitched, dancing in the air as he went back and forth between wanting to rescue his bow from Little John’s meaty hand and wanting to avoid provoking the irate man into hitting him with it. “Calm yourself. Even if she’s here, she’s not here here. Unless you’re telling me she managed to see through the glamour and is actually inside the encampment?”

  Little John threw the bow down onto the mess of sheets that covered Robin’s bed. “No, she hasn’t. And you have missed my point completely.”

  The first stirring of anger finally flickered to life, driving Robin up from his seat. Little John was using his disapproving father voice. I hate that voice. He leaned over to pluck his quiver from the hook on the wall and slung it onto his back. Fastening the buckle across his chest gave him time to settle his thoughts before speaking—something Little John usually accused him of being incapable of.

  “What do you mean then? What is it that I’m missing, that’s getting your fur in a tizzy?”

  He didn’t wait for an answer, but slipped past the bulky shifter and out the door, leaving him to follow with his answer. The fresh evening air mocked him with its cheerfulness, throwing his hair about his face in an overly-enthusiastic greeting.

  “If the sheriff is having her followed, there’s a good chance he’s drawn a connection between you two.”

  “So?” Robin looked around the glen where he and his companions stayed, the encampment hidden in a glamoured area of the forest that was supposed to keep out anyone who didn’t know it was there.

  Their modest homes were all camouflaged just in case someone did wander through the glamour, so it didn’t look any different from any other valley. His own hut was tucked into a rocky hill, its stone façade indistinguishable as an abode amidst the stones and generous fall of wildflowers. Will’s hut was high up in a tree, little more than a few planks of wood for a floor, sheltered by a thick layer of vines and leaves. Little John’s larger abode was, appropriately, a cave.

  “She’s walking in circles beneath Will’s lookout point,” Little John continued. “We think she knows she’s being followed and she’s trying to get our attention without leading the wolves here.”

  Robin started off in the spriggan’s direction, a jumble of thoughts fighting for dominance in his head. He still didn’t know how he would answer Marian’s plea from last night. A part of him had hoped that perhaps she would change her mind, would give him a chance to show her what life could be if she would just let go. But something told him she hadn’t sought him out because she had good news. And the fact that the sheriff’s wolves were trailing her didn’t bode well either. He was going to have to do something about that.

  Little John trailed after him, the tension rolling off of him making it clear he wasn’t finished with his lecture, and he wasn’t going to be deterred by having a walk while he gave it. “If he’s drawn a connection between you two, then Marian’s position is compromised. You know he’ll never leave her alone if he thinks she’s not human—especially if he thinks he can get to you through her. I told you taunting the sheriff was a bad idea.”

  “Taunting the law is the right of every bandit.” Robin climbed another swollen hill, pausing to look out at the forest even though he couldn’t see Will’s lookout position from here. This glen was an oasis in that sea of green, a safe haven that would protect Marian if it came to it. The sheriff would not touch her.

  “Taunting him is one thing, but making him live through death is another. And you’ve done it to him twice.”

  Little John put a hand on Robin’s shoulder. Annoyance tightened the skin around Robin’s eyes and he turned, ready to give the shifter a piece of his mind. He was tired of being treated like a child, admonished for every action he took. As long as he was correcting Marian on it, he may as well start with Little John too.

  The look on the shifter’s face stopped him. There were deep lines that hadn’t been there before, and even his beard looked stressed, clinging together in places as if Little John had tugged at it more than usual. A wrinkle between his brows drew his attention, and if Robin didn’t know any better, he’d have said Little John looked afraid.

  “Robin,” he said quietly, “p
erhaps this is difficult for you to understand with your lifespan, but for a mortal, being forced to experience death—even just mentally—is not a small thing. Our psyches are not meant to deal with that kind of trauma, that kind of harsh reality—certainly not more than once.”

  He dropped his arm, but the weight of his gaze was just as heavy, and held Robin in place just as well. Little John’s words were an unpleasant reminder of a reality he preferred to pretend didn’t exist. The reality that he would outlive his friend—outlive him by centuries. Already the shifter looked older than he had when they’d met, had more wrinkles on his face. He was a shifter, and he would live a significantly longer life than a human, but compared to a sidhe…

  Little John’s face softened. “Don’t look at me like that, I’m not dying anytime soon.” He rolled his eyes. “Unless of course you get me killed. What I’m saying is, I don’t think you realize just how dangerous toying with the sheriff’s mind might be. He is not a weak man, not a timid man. He is cold and he is calculating and the one thing that holds him in check, that keeps him a productive member of his society and not a madman running about bristling with sharp, pointy weapons, is his discipline, his dedication to justice.” He held up a hand to halt whatever protest Robin might have offered. “Justice as he sees it.”

  Robin drew an arrow, caressed the feathered end as he turned over everything Little John had said. “You think I might be turning our righteous crusader against all creatures non-human into a psychotic serial killer of all creatures period.”

  “I think you’ve changed him, and what you’ve changed him into is not the sort of person you want concentrating on a woman you’ve come to care for.”

  The arrow snapped in Robin’s hand, his head jerking up. His heartbeat pounded in his ears and it was suddenly difficult to swallow.