The Archer (The Blood Realm Series Book 3)

by Jennifer Blackstream

  She leaned against the wall next to him, head pressed against one of the few bare spots on the wall. “They are quite a family.”

  “That they are.” Robin rubbed a hand over his jaw, turning Mr. Thornton’s words over in his mind. For all the old man’s insistence that Robin avoid pursuing Marian and her…spirited…ways, he couldn’t help but notice that the man seemed quite happy. And Mrs. Thornton had paused in the middle of rolling out her bread dough to watch her husband comfort their child with a look of utter bliss in her eyes.

  “You’ve seemed a little different since I agreed to stay.”

  Marian’s voice echoed in his head. Her little offhand observation caught him off guard, but after reflecting on it, he realized she was right. He did feel more at ease since she’d agreed to stay. Like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders, freeing him to continue the pursuits he’d dedicated himself to. And fleecing the Heaths had been enjoyable on a level he hadn’t felt in some time. A few days ago, the whole episode would have bored him. But somehow, seeing Marian participate, seeing her throw herself into the endeavor with all that passion…

  “It seems like the gold we’ve given them won’t last a fortnight. All those mouths to feed.”

  Robin snapped out of his reverie, Marian’s tone setting off warning bells in his head. He took her warm hands in his, forced her to face him fully. “Listen to me, and let me save you the heartache that plagued me in the first days of my little band of thieves. Do not pity these people. Do not worry, do not fear.”

  Marian’s eyes danced over the cottage, taking in the crowded conditions and the furniture that had seen better days. She looked to the kitchen and he knew she was assessing the food stores, realizing how far every ounce of food had to stretch.

  “Look at me, Marian.” He tugged at her hands, then let go to grasp her shoulders, shake her until she finally met his eyes. “They are poor, but you’ll not find anyone more resilient. You look at them and you think of how you would feel in their situation, but you were raised with wealth, with certain…expectations. These people were not. Look at them, really look at them. Do they look unhappy?”

  She did as he asked, though there was obvious doubt in the slant of her eyebrows as she watched the father now bouncing a giggling child in his arms, the mother and eldest daughter standing side by side with matching smiles as they watched the rest of the brood writhe around on the floor.

  “They look…happy.”

  “Exactly. The gold we gave them will help them, make no mistake. The kids will get birthday presents this year—clothes, likely, but still presents. And they may get more meat—”

  “They need more meat.” Marian stiffened, then grabbed his shoulders so they held each other now.

  Robin blinked, his concentration nearly severed by the solid weight of her hands, the excitement threatening to break through the glamour he laid over her. “Meat? Oh, yes. Yes, of course, they always need more meat. The fields require a lot of work, there’s little time for hunt—”

  “But I could help with that,” Marian interrupted again. Her fingers dug into his shoulders. “I could hunt for them, bring them the meat.” Her eyes lost their focus, staring into the future. “I could help a lot of families. Even those who have the time to hunt, if I were to provide that meat for them, it would free up some time, wouldn’t it? Time they could well use for other things.”

  “Indeed.” There was an excitement in her now that crackled like a hint of lightning over her skin. Robin let his hands slide from her shoulder down to her waist. A moment of conflict held him immobile for a moment, torn between the desire to pull her closer, and the fear of ruining this perfect moment, of making her think he wanted something more out of this moment than to share it, to bask in the happiness painted across her cheeks.

  Marian’s eyes met his. Was it his imagination, or did she lean in a little? His heart skipped a beat. He pressed his fingers into her waist, feeling her true curves beneath the glamour. For a second he cursed his own talent, cursed it for hiding her face from him. He wanted to see those green eyes, wanted to see her. This woman in his arms now was happy, radiant with passion, with a realization that she had the potential to affect lives for the better. It was glorious and he’d never wanted to kiss her as badly as he did in that moment.

  Gradually, Robin became aware that the house had grown quiet. He reluctantly broke his gaze from Marian to find the twins had ceased their demands for attention and were sitting on the floor, leaning against one another and rubbing their eyes. The child in Mr. Thornton’s arms had laid her head on his shoulder, her thumb wedged firmly in her mouth. Mrs. Thornton and the oldest daughter were each holding another child, swaying back and forth as the young ones succumbed to the call of sleep.

  “We’d best get going,” he said quietly. “Bedtime approaches.”

  Marian nodded, false brown eyes still locked on him. For a moment, neither of them moved. Robin stood there with his hands on her waist, memorizing the curve of her hips. Her hand moved, her fingers toying with a lock of his hair. His breath caught in his throat. The gesture, small that it was, felt immeasurably intimate.

  He wanted to kiss her. He wanted to kiss her more than he wanted his next breath. But now wasn’t the time. Not here, not standing in front of the Thorntons and their seven children. Taking his hands off her waist was one of the hardest things he’d ever had to do, the need to keep her in his arms, to protect the delicate moment they were sharing, holding his palms to her as if he would never let go. When he dropped his arms to his sides, they itched with the need to hold her again, felt cold without the warmth of her body. It might have been his imagination, but he thought he saw the same regret in her eyes, the same longing to draw this moment out.

  They shared the knowledge that it would be gone as soon as they stepped apart.

  They said their goodbyes to the Thorntons, the knowing look on the married couple’s faces chasing them out into the night. Little John and Will had gone back to the sanctuary long ago, so it was just him and Marian now. Alone.

  As he’d feared, the easy closeness they’d shared so briefly was gone, cooled by the night air and the space between them. They walked along in silence, each lost to their own thoughts. The need to say something bubbled inside him, demanding he speak even though he didn’t know what to say. He groped for some snippet of conversation he might offer, something that would close this damned distance growing wider between them. When they were five minutes from the camp, his desperation peaked and he blurted out the first thing that came to his mind.

  “The first of your three nights will end shortly.” Oh, yes, do let’s talk about that happy time limit. He studied Marian out of the corner of his eye, committed to finishing the thought no matter what unpleasant end it might lead to. “Was it as horrible as you expected?”

  Marian plucked a leaf from a low hanging branch, turning the oblong greenery over in her fingers. “It was very different from what I expected.”

  Robin nudged her with his shoulder. “You thought perhaps I was going to have you run skyclad over the fields, getting drunk on magic and mayhem?”

  She pursed her lips, smothering the smile he’d caught twitching at the corner of her mouth. Encouraged, he was about to nudge her again, try to start a back and forth of physical contact, but he held back when she shook her head.

  “You are so sure you know me, aren’t you? Just because you spied on me.”

  Her voice wasn’t angry, but there was a…sadness? Something in her voice that he didn’t want to be there, something that didn’t belong in the tone of the woman who’d been so happy not an hour ago. She trailed a fingernail over the thick vein that ran down the middle of her leaf.

  “Not just because I spied on you.” He slowed his pace, pleased when she slowed to match him. “Also because we are more alike than I think you want to admit.”

  “We are both archers and so we are alike?” She rolled the stem of her leaf between her thumb and forefinger, w
atching it twirl with an unnecessary level of concentration. “That is a rather shallow comparison.”

  He bent and plucked a stick from the ground. If she was going to give her attention to an inanimate object, so would he. “I’m not sure how shallow that comparison would be.” He lifted the stick to eye level, staring down the length of it the way he would test an arrow for curves. “Archery is a skill that takes a great deal of time and effort to hone to the level we share. I would think that sort of dedication, that sort of passion for the art, would be a significant thing to have in common.” He glanced away from his stick. “However, that is not the comparison I was going to make. I refer rather to the fact that we are both foster children.”

  “So you said before.” Marian kept walking, still twirling the damn leaf. “You said your birth mother wanted to change you and your foster mother took you as you were.”

  “Simplified, perhaps, but yes.” He eyed the leaf between her fingers, debating drawing his bow and having a little target practice.

  “And you don’t see that as your birth mother wanting more for you because you are her child? That perhaps she believed you were capable of being more whereas your foster mother encouraged you to settle, to—”

  “Do allow me to stop you right there.” Robin dropped his stick and plucked the leaf from her grasp. He let it float to the ground and took her hands in his, holding them, forcing her to stop walking and meet his eyes. Brown orbs gazed at him from a face that didn’t belong on his huntress and he pressed his lips together, banishing her glamour with a thought. The return of her green eyes and red hair soothed his soul, settled a part of him that had bristled at making his huntress into something she wasn’t.

  “Marian, loyalty is a grand thing. Your loyalty to your foster parents is awe-inspiring, and I say that without a trace of condescension, please believe me.” He raised their hands, cradled them against his chest. “But I do not understand why you are so convinced the life they wanted for you is better than the life you want for yourself? Why can’t you see that the lives are just different, one is not better than the other?”

  She tried to pull her hands free from his grasp, her murky green eyes falling away from his. He held tight, dipped his head to keep looking at her face. He’d asked the question to make her think, to show her the error of her ways, but he suddenly found himself with a burning need to know the answer. To understand her.

  “Marian, back at the Thorntons, you had a vision for yourself. You saw yourself out in the forest that you love, hunting, free and wild as you were meant to be. In your vision, you had purpose, a new purpose but one intimately connected with your own pleasures, your own skills. I saw the happiness there, the joy, the hope. Now tell me, is that vision so much less than what your parents wanted for you?”

  For a long minute, he thought she wouldn’t answer. Her hands tensed in his, the will to pull away from him there in the stiffness in her shoulders. Then she let out a slow breath. Finally she met his eyes.

  “Think of your hidden glen.”

  Robin frowned, thrown off by the abrupt change in topic, but he nodded. “All right. What about it?”

  “You need that glen, don’t you? You need that hiding place. You go about the forest doing…doing good, and helping people.” She smiled, but it wasn’t an expression of happiness. “But you have to go back to the glen eventually, have to go back to hiding.”

  “And that is what this other life is for you, your life in the manor and the fields that makes you so miserable. That is your hiding place?”

  Her eyes fell to their hands, still pressed against his chest. She extended one finger, gently rubbing the rough material of his vest. A thrill traveled down his spine and he was at once intrigued and dismayed that he should have such a strong reaction to such a minor touch. A small step brought them closer and he held his breath, waiting to see if she would take advantage, touch him again.

  “Yes. That is my glamour, my secret glen. I need it if I’m to allow myself even my brief freedom in the woods.”

  It took him a minute to remember the question he’d asked to get that response, distracted as he was by the back and forth brush of her finger. “I would share my glen with you, Marian. You could hide with me.”

  He listened to the words coming out of his mouth and heard them as if someone else had spoken. Certainly he hadn’t meant to say that. Not that Marian wasn’t welcome in his camp—he’d insisted she stay after all. But the invitation coming out of his mouth now had a ring of permanence, a suggestion that her stay may not be temporary. It was an offer he had made only twice before—and never this quickly.

  Never to a woman.

  He waited for a surge of panic, a rampant desire to take back the words he’d spoken so carelessly. But it didn’t come.

  I meant it. Strange.

  Marian’s eyes darkened from a light spring green to a deep, shadowed forest. “I’m sorry. I can’t stay.”

  Her words slid into his chest with the sharp pressure of a blade. A flicker of desperation drove him forward to band his arms about her waist, hold her against him as if he could stop the horrible distance spreading between them even though neither had moved away. “I would let you keep your secret. I would stop spying on you, let you have your mystique.” He tried to lighten his voice at the end, give it the feel of a teasing reminder, but there was no denying the urgency in his voice. No pretending he didn’t care very much that she stay.

  Her eyes glistened, but no tears fell. She raised her hands to cup his face, fluttering her thumbs over his cheekbones. “No, you wouldn’t. You are an enthusiastic, curious, and infuriatingly persistent man. You might let it go for awhile—might try to let it go completely. But you and I both know that the need to solve the mystery would eat at you and eventually you would pursue it.”

  “I want to know your secret, I won’t lie and say I don’t.” He put his hands over hers, holding her closer to his face. “But I would let it go, for you. If you would stay.”

  Marian gave him a sad smile. “No. Even if you could resist the urge, I would never want you to. To deny yourself the thrill of solving the mystery, to repress your curiosity…it would make you less you. It would rob you of that wonderful, impossible…life that infuses every part of you.” She swallowed hard, pausing a moment as if collecting herself. “I’ve had a lot of unkind things to say about you since we met. But now I think…I think I would never forgive myself if I changed you.”

  A lump rose in his throat, and he was disturbed to feel the burn of tears. “Marian, I—”

  She pulled a hand from his to put a finger on his lips. A cool wash of relief flowed over him. He wasn’t sure of what he’d been about to say, but he was fairly certain neither of them were ready to find out.

  “Thank you for these three days,” she said quietly. “I will relish every second as it happens, and when they’re over, I will always treasure them.”

  She backed away then and he let her go. But a realization was dawning inside him, a soul-crushing realization that scared him more than he’d ever been scared in his life.

  Three days he’d asked for. Three days and he would let her walk away.

  And a sidhe never broke his word.

  Chapter Twenty

  “Sheriff, are you certain this is…legal?”

  The quill in Mac’s hand snapped, splattering ink over the notice he’d been drafting so carefully. He kept his gaze on the broken writing instrument, not trusting what would show on his face if he looked up now. A droplet of ink slid down the shaft of the quill, beading at the fracture until it grew too heavy. It landed with a plop on the parchment, just one of many blots that now ruined the announcement.

  He closed his eyes to block it out, but shutting them made the buzzing in his ears all the worse for lack of distraction. Louder and louder, he could feel the vibration in his ears, feel it spreading over his body until he was no more than one large nerve throbbing under the wretched drone of iron.

  The guard h
eld his body at attention for a full two minutes before he started to squirm, shifting from foot to foot. His leather armor creaked, the sound louder than it should have been thanks to the near-perfect silence. An image roared into Mac’s brain, a vision of him shoving his chair back, of leaping over the desk and falling on the man like a ravaging wolf, teeth bared, lips curled back in a snarl. The image was so vivid he felt flesh in his mouth, tasted the blood that would drip down his jaws. Adrenaline spiked and his eyes flew open.

  Glen fell back a step, blue-grey eyes bulging. His hand fell to the sword at his side, muscles bunching in his arms as he fought not to draw it on his superior. His panic pleased Mac, soothed his frazzled nerves. He held Glen’s gaze, keeping the man frozen in place. It was right that the guard should be afraid of him. Wasn’t it?

  No. No, this…this isn’t right. Mac drew in a deep breath, forced himself to fill his lungs, hold the air in for the count of three. He willed his heartbeat to slow, willed the burn of adrenaline to ease, to release its stranglehold on his nerves. The ringing in his ears made it difficult to gather his thoughts, to remember what he’d been doing. The ruined parchment…the announcement… Ah, yes. When he thought he could speak without growling, he twisted his mouth into the closest he could manage to a reassuring smile.

  “Lady Marian fled the county while she was being investigated for possible fraud. That makes her a fugitive, and a fugitive has…limited rights. Her abandonment of her home and her property is evidence that she feared the outcome of my investigation, suggesting that the four hundred pounds she so miraculously came up with was indeed stolen. Therefore, I am fully within my rights to put her property up for sale as a means of recouping the eric she still owes.”

  He returned his attention to the ink splattered parchment, keeping an iron grip on his temper as he calmly put it aside and reached for a fresh sheet. He found a new quill in his desk drawer and dipped the quill in the ink, ready to draft the notice anew.