“Marian—”
The muscles in the sheriff’s forearm flexed. Robin bit back a shout, what little blood had remained in his face draining to leave him as pale as a ghost.
“Stop it!” The scream didn’t have the power she’d wanted it to, her lungs still stiff from Herne’s command. She poured her fury into her eyes, willing the sheriff to understand the violent death that waited for him if he didn’t release Robin.
The sheriff kicked Robin’s legs, forcing the taller man to his knees. A flash of metal caught the sunlight, revealing the iron claws hooked into Robin’s side before he slid them deeper, hiding them from view inside Robin’s flesh. Robin choked, turned his head and vomited onto the forest floor. He swayed as if fighting to remain conscious, but the sheriff gave him no leniency, no mercy. He leaned down, pressed his mouth to the side of Robin’s head, just a hair’s breadth from his ear.
“I have waited so very long for this day. You take, and take, and take. Always taking what isn’t yours. Now you will watch. Watch him take her away.”
The sheriff’s voice was scarcely more than a whisper, but Marian heard every word. She snarled, fought against Herne’s compulsion anew. It was no use. The command to stay lingered, lay over her body like a net. A red haze fell over her vision, drove her to fight, to strain forward, futility be damned. Saliva pooled in her mouth, her jaw aching with the urge to bite.
Robin’s jaw tightened and he lurched up, trying to regain his feet. The sheriff grinned and buried his fingers a little deeper in Robin’s side, sent a fresh surge of blood flowing down toward the bloody grass. Robin’s eyes fluttered and he fell to his knees, and only the sheriff’s grip on his arm kept him from slumping to the ground.
“Ah, ah, ah,” the sheriff taunted. He pulled his claws from Robin’s side, grabbed his head and forced him to look at Marian. The blood from his claws painted pink streaks through Robin’s white-blond hair. “Don’t you want to say goodbye?”
Marian hissed as she finally got a good look at the iron claws strapped to the sheriff’s hand, wet and shining red with Robin’s blood. Her fingers ached, something sharp beneath her skin sliding forward, wanting out.
“Leave him alone.” She tensed the muscles in her arm, tried to release the arrow that vibrated with readiness against the bowstring. The compulsion wavered.
“If you want to attack him, why don’t you change?”
Herne’s voice was much closer than she’d expected. His breath moved the hair at her temples, ghosted over the shell of her ear. A weight settled on her bow, closed over her hand holding the arrow. Her chest tightened with a restrained scream as Herne gently took the bow and arrow from her useless fingers.
For a moment, the compulsion released her. Pain arced through her arms, back and stomach, a punishment for straining against an immoveable force. She resisted the urge to massage the throbbing muscles, instead locked her attention on Robin. Her knees trembled and she took a halting step.
“Do you know how to change, Marian?”
There was a slight hint of disgust creeping into Herne’s voice now, but Marian ignored him. She saw nothing beyond Robin, beyond the pain etching his face with deep lines, the alarming amount of blood soaking his clothes, turning the vibrant green to a disturbing blackish-brown.
“Robin?”
He didn’t respond. His head sagged against his chest, his body little more than a dead weight in the sheriff’s grip. Marian held her breath, clenched her teeth to keep back a sob.
“I know what you are now.”
Robin’s voice surprised her, drawing her another quick step closer. The words were little more than a rasp, his voice weak and thready from blood loss. He lifted his head to look at her, and the strain on his face betrayed the effort of the simple movement.
“You are one of the Cŵn Annwn—a hellhound.” He started to laugh, then choked, shook his head. “The hunting, the red eyes… How did I miss it?”
“It was a spell,” Marian whispered. The tears flowed freely now and she didn’t bother to wipe them away. “I couldn’t tell you. Not any of it. To talk about the spell was to weaken it, and I…” Her voice broke. “This is all my fault. Robin, I’m so sorry.”
“No!” He wheezed, a wet cough rattling his lungs. “This changes nothing. You’re staying with me.”
“She most certainly is not.”
This time the disgust was thick in Herne’s voice, a hard edge that rubbed Marian the wrong way, made her jaw ache to bite the man who’d spoken. She started to turn, teeth bared.
“Marian, heel.”
A new compulsion seized her, coiled her muscles. She’d taken two steps toward Herne before she even realized she’d moved.
“No,” she ground out. She dropped to her knees, dug her fingers into the ground as if she could hold onto the earth, keep herself from being drawn back. Cold, wet soil pressed against her fingertips, chilled her to the bone. “I will not leave him.”
“You are coming with me.” Herne’s voice had dropped to a growl, his earlier amicability melted away, revealing the voice of her master.
“You will have a choice.”
“I have made my choice. I am staying with Robin.”
“You have no choice!”
Something grabbed her by the back of her cloak and Marian snarled as she was hauled backward. Anger poured hot adrenaline into her veins. She jerked her head back, snapping her teeth at Herne. His black eyes glittered, his anger unmistakable as he returned her snarl with one of his own.
“For thirty years you have had free rein, and what have you done with it? Nothing. The man you claim to want to spend your life with kneels there in a pool of his own blood—fallen to the hand of a human. You ache to save him and yet still you do not change—cannot change.” Revulsion filled his voice, pinched his sharp features. “You have been outside our kingdom for too long. No, Marian, you will not stay here. You will return with me, and you will not leave my side until I am assured—convinced—that you have completely recovered from the insanity inflicted on you by your time among the humans.”
“No…” Marian twisted, looked back at Robin. The sheriff stood behind him, watching the exchange with all the joy of a child unwrapping presents on the Winter Solstice. “I won’t leave him here. He’ll die.”
“I’m sorry, child. This is for your own good.”
Pain exploded inside her. Shattered bones, muscles torn to shreds, organs popping, shrinking. Marian screamed as her body reformed, blood, bone, and muscle remaking themselves into something new, something she had always been and never been. Her arms thinned, fingers shrinking into paws, her back legs snapping at the knee to face the other direction. Black fur poured over her body, coating her in darkness and shadows. She opened her mouth, a howl spilling past her throat, sliced into eerie shreds on vicious white teeth.
The world changed as much as she did. Colors were more vivid, burning with details she’d never noticed before, never appreciated. Scents assaulted her nose, every one overwhelming, fighting to be noticed, followed. The wind teased her with new possibilities, tempting her with scent trails to follow.
“Come.”
A howl crawled from her throat, a low, mournful cry for the man so close and yet so far, but she turned, coming to heel. Herne looked over her at the sheriff. “Hold him. She’s had thirty years of brain-washing. Thirty years with me should be sufficient to correct it.”
The sheriff’s voice held a sinister glee, the iron claws clinking together as he knelt beside Robin. “My pleasure.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
The pain in Robin’s side burned white-hot, like a poker left to heat in the heart of a blacksmith’s forge. It stabbed at him, digging deeper and deeper, razor fine points of agony stretching through his side as if they would explode out his ribs, leave him deflated, lying in a spreading pool of his own blood. He drew breath to scream. His lungs expanded, pressing against the damaged flesh. The sound died before it could leave his lips, left him gaspin
g to catch his breath. The world swam around him, and he nearly succumbed to unconsciousness again.
A howl trickled through his mind, an eerie mournful sound that wrapped around his heart and pulled. The call of a hound. A Cŵn Annwn.
“I’ve made my choice. I’m staying with Robin.”
Marian. Marian’s voice. She wanted to stay with him. She chose him. Robin smiled even through his pain, tried to raise his head, to tell her how happy he was, how much he would treasure her. Dried blood pulled at his skin, wet warmth warning him that he’d reopened a wound. It didn’t matter though, he needed to see Marian, to tell her—
“You have no choice!”
Herne.
Robin sat up with a jolt, body bellowing in agony as his wounds protested the sudden movement. He held a hand extended as if Marian was still here, as if he could grab onto her, keep Herne from taking her away. But she wasn’t there. Nothing was there, nothing to see but dirt. Dirt in front of him, dirt below him. And it was dark, darker than it should have been. But why?
Slowly, bits of memory came back to him. Herne taking Marian away, forcing her to change. The sheriff’s iron claws.
That last memory made his flesh tighten, the sensory details that accompanied it making him relive that moment. The moment the iron had broken skin, slid through flesh and curled, holding him like a fish on a hook. He breathed through the pain, and very slowly ran his fingers over his side. There was a bandage there, a strip of material that had been knotted in a half-hearted attempt to stop the bleeding. Robin winced, trying to make his fingers work enough to loosen the knot so he could touch the injured flesh.
Four puncture wounds dotted his side where the sheriff had plunged his man-made claws just under his ribs. He hadn’t raked him with the claws, but had used them like some reptiles used their fangs, curling them into Robin’s flesh and holding on to him, keeping him hooked on the iron, unable to move without risking more damage. The wounds bled heavily, but he could still breathe, so they’d missed his lungs. He didn’t smell anything that would suggest his intestines had been compromised either. Beyond that, he would need a healer to determine the extent of the damage.
He could still see Marian’s eyes, wide with fear and muted anger as her hound form consumed her human body, bound it in fur and that filmy shadow unique to hellhounds. It was his fault. She’d been hiding, hiding from Herne, the greatest hunter the fey could boast. He had dragged her out of hiding, brought her into the open, made her the sheriff’s target. Taunted and tormented the sheriff until the man was desperate enough to use Marian to get to him. Until he’d been willing to turn to the fey he hated for help.
Determination welled up inside him and he gritted his teeth. He had to find her. He fumbled for the buttons of his shirt. He would need to re-bandage his wounds. He was surrounded by earth, and that would help his body replenish his blood, but that wouldn’t do him any good if he kept bleeding. He gripped his shirt sleeve, took a deep breath, and tried to pull his arm free.
Fog ate at his vision. The pain that had been so sharp, so hot when he’d woken, was melting down into something thicker, something bonded to his limbs. The pain tried to swallow him, suffocate him. He tried to blink away the haze settling over his eyes, tried to fight for consciousness. His pulse throbbed in his neck, so hard he nearly choked on it.
He rolled to his side and vomited onto tightly packed earth. His head bobbed, the ground welcoming him, calling to him to lie down, to let reality fade away. There was too much pain here. He had to sleep. To heal.
A soft golden light flickered before his eyes. A second later, cold water poured over him in a splash of icy reality. It soaked into his clothes, gluing them to his body and turning his hair into dripping tendrils that clung to his face, hid him in a curtain of sodden locks. He turned his head, slowly so as not to upset his stomach further, and peered up through the hanging twists of wet blond hair.
His eyes were teary from vomiting, and even the soft lamplight that reached into the pit was harsh and painful. He tried to focus. Blurs of color mocked him, swirled around in nonsensical patterns. He blinked again, squinted. The colors slowed, then clotted to form the dark figure of the sheriff. If his nightvision had been any less keen, the man would have blended completely with the night sky.
“Ah, you’re back with me. Good.”
He’d taken his cloak off, and now Robin could see what he’d been hiding underneath it. A broadsword strapped to his back. No less than three daggers at his side. A set of iron manacles dangling from his belt. A small pouch coated with white dust. Far too many weapons, considering he’d called Herne to take Marian.
The sheriff noticed the direction of his gaze and dropped a hand to the manacles, running a finger over the metal. “I have been waiting a long time for this.” His voice was soft, and for just a second, there was an echo of the old sheriff. The sheriff who had sworn vengeance on him, who had pursued him so relentlessly. Then a smile slid across his face and the madness returned to light his eyes.
“I will have my fun, but I’m not the only one you’ve wronged. Maybe I’ll let the wolves have you for an hour or so. They are so very put out by what you did to them. Sniveling beasts. Or perhaps your victims would like their pound of flesh.” He paused and nodded. “Yes, I think that could be very entertaining. Perfect justice.”
He frowned, started pacing again, circling the pit. “I’ll find a way to get that land back eventually. Can’t have her returning. Can’t trust the fey, not any of you. He might let her go. Might let her come back. Can’t explain to the others, the people. Won’t understand.”
The sheriff continued to ramble and Robin’s stomach twisted a little more with every mumble, every ranting word. Little John was right. He had pushed the sheriff too far. Created a madman.
Little John. Will.
Robin tensed, body going rigid as he remembered his friends. Torn flesh screamed at him, another wave of nausea rising like a sick tide, threatening to bring more stomach bile roaring up his throat. He planted his hands on the ground, held on while the dizziness passed. Breathe, one, two, three, breathe.
Think. Little John. Will. Where are they?
Slowly, so slowly, his memory offered up tidbits from earlier in the day. He’d left Marian at the tournament, gone to the woods. He’d seen a cloaked figure watching the archers, sensed something off. He’d fetched Little John and Will and they’d formed a triangle around the figure, waited for him to reveal himself. When the tournament ended, the figure had retreated into the woods, stood in a clearing and just…waited.
Then Marian had come, and the figure had revealed himself to be Herne. Pain in his side, the sheriff’s breath on his throat. Stupid, stupid, stupid, he’d allowed himself to be too distracted, to rest his full attention on Marian and Herne, hadn’t heard the sheriff.
But what happened to Little John and Will?
They wouldn’t have let Herne drag Marian off, wouldn’t have stood by while the sheriff buried his iron claws in his flesh. Which meant…
No! No, don’t think of that. They’re fine. They’re fine, they’re fine, they’re fine.
His mind refused to stop, kept drawing on more and more images of Herne’s court, of all the creatures he might have brought with him. He’d said the sheriff had promised him a hunt, a true challenge. He would have brought his best with him. Creatures whose sole purpose was to hunt, to kill. Creatures who would have no trouble sneaking up on a shifter and a spriggan…
“Thirty years. Thirty years he’s going to keep her, and I’ll keep you alive for every one of them. Thirty years to think about her, think about how you will never see her again.”
Robin’s temper rose, hot and fast. He welcomed the anger, fed it, coaxed it closer. The fury dulled the pain, sharpened his thoughts so he could string more than one thought together and hold it in his mind.
He doesn’t want me dead. He wants me to suffer.
“You’ll have me for no more than a day if you do not let me se
e a healer. You’re as clumsy with your little iron claws as you are with your ‘justice.’”
The anger he’d expected to see on the sheriff’s face didn’t come. Instead, he grinned. Again, Robin was struck by how out of place the expression was on the sheriff’s face. The man had smiled more in one day than he had in all the years Robin had known him—yet another sign that the man was unwell.
And you’re baiting him.
“You will live,” the sheriff promised. “There’s a bucket against the wall of your new home. In it are clean bandages, a bottle of water, and some herbs that I am assured do wonders to aid the clotting of blood. Tend yourself and then get some rest. You’ll be having visitors soon.”
He turned to walk away, letting his last statement hover in the air like a grim promise. Robin’s stomach dropped and he threw out a hand, immediately regretting it when the world tilted and he nearly vomited all over himself.
“Wait!” he choked, spitting out a trace of bile.
The sheriff paused, but didn’t turn around. “Yes?”
“Your quarrel is with me, not Marian. How is it justice to make her suffer for my sins?”
Slowly, the sheriff returned to the edge of the pit. He knelt at the edge, balancing on the balls of his feet, his fingers steepled in front of him, arms resting on his knees. “What makes you think she’ll suffer?”
Robin snapped his mouth closed, his pain-addled brain struggling to keep up with the turn in the conversation. The sheriff studied Robin as if memorizing every line of his face, watching for the slightest change in expression.
“I heard what the wild fey said. And I know a little something of hellhounds. What makes you think Marian won’t find peace with him? For the first time in her life, she will have her pack around her, have her master’s steadying hand and guidance. What makes you think she won’t be very, very happy?” He tilted his head, savoring the moment. “Without you.”
The Archer (The Blood Realm Series Book 3) Page 30
