The Archer (The Blood Realm Series Book 3) (19 page)

As they crested the hill, Marian faltered and stopped. Robin’s companions were waiting there, the same two men who had been with him at that first meeting.

The bear shifter wore a plain green shirt the color of dried pine needles and pants of a matching shade. Dark lines flowed from the collar of the shirt to the edge of the sleeves, and from the sleeves down to the bottom hem. The pants were lined on either side with similar creases and it took Marian a moment to realize they were laces.

Clever. That way when he shifts, the clothes tear at the laces and can be repaired.

She was still appreciating the concept when the bulky man in question lurched into motion. He moved faster than she would have given a man that size credit for, and suddenly he was invading her personal space, leaning over her own not inconsiderable height. She opened her mouth to warn him off, already reaching for her bow, when he leaned in…and
sniffed
her.

A second later he stumbled back, a sneeze exploding from him with enough force that she thought she may get to see his laces in action. He wrinkled his nose and waved a hand at her as if to ward off an offensive scent.

“Still just rosemary,” he told Robin, his voice thick as if another sneeze were threatening.

The
spriggan
fell to the ground in a fit of hysterical giggles, arms and legs akimbo, high-pitched laugh sending a chill down Marian’s spine. She angled her body in his direction without meaning to, her bow rising slightly, right hand flexing, ready to draw an arrow. Some primal part of her wanting that sound to stop—now.

“Now, now, Marian, don’t waste your ammunition on my friends.” Robin’s voice was soothing, as if he were used to people having that reaction to his companion’s laugh. He stepped between Marian and Will. “I’ve brought you something much more fun for tonight.”

The
spriggan
stopped laughing, but fixed Marian with those sickly yellow eyes, too-wide smile turning her stomach with the wrongness of it. A chest covered in a green shirt and darker green vest blocked her view as Robin slid in front of her, his position farther up the hill letting him tower over Marian even though he wasn’t that much taller. He gestured at something on the ground and she tore her gaze from the
spriggan
to see what he wanted to show her.

It was a wine cask. Marian furrowed her brows, looked harder at the cask. The flourish with which Robin gestured at it had made it seem like there was some significance to the thing, but for all she could see it was just a plain brown barrel with perfectly ordinary metal rings holding the planks together. There was a faint whiff of fermented grapes that promised her it was indeed a wine cask.

“I don’t drink,” she said finally.

Robin’s grin widened and he lifted the cask. His muscles bunched, flexing as though the cask had weight to it, but there was no strain on his face to suggest he found it heavy. Perhaps it was empty, or only partially full. As Marian watched, he unscrewed the spigot, leaving a small hole in the wood. The scent of wine grew stronger and Robin shook the barrel with two hard jerks.

Something tumbled out of the cask—not a liquid, but…

Marian’s jaw dropped as what had appeared as no more than a small wadded up rag grew into a creature the size of a small child. It tumbled to the grass, a floppy brown hat falling over its eyes and hiding most of its face. Its clothes were brown, wet in spots and reeking of the wine that must have filled the cask at some point. Before Marian could react, the creature jerked into a sitting position and a flow of the most foul language she’d ever heard poured from its lips.

“This is Collin,” Robin informed her, speaking loudly to be heard over the creature’s swearing. “He’s a
cluricaune
.” He dropped the cask and wagged a finger at the
cluricaune
. “He’s been quite naughty, taking up lodging in the homes of those too poor to afford his rather gluttonous appetites. Not to mention the poor maids have had enough beatings to keep them limping for a year thanks to their inability to live up to his unreasonably high standards.” His attention slid back to Marian, a spark of mischief in his eyes. “I thought perhaps it might give him a bit of perspective if he found out what it was like to face judgment on his own.”

“I haven’t done anything wrong!” the
cluricaune
bellowed.

He shot to his feet only to lurch to the side and flail about before keeling over. The scent of wine wafted off of him in a fog thick enough to choke a horse and Marian clapped her free hand over her mouth and scurried back a few paces.

Robin flowed to her side, his limbs all sinewy, serpentine grace. He leaned closer to speak with his mouth only a few inches from her ear. “Don’t let him fool you. He’s drunk, yes, but he’s got a much stronger constitution than he’s pretending. He’ll be off like a shot if you take your eyes off him.” He winked at the
cluricaune
. “Not that it’ll do you any good. She’s faster than she looks too.”

The fumes from the booze-infused fey made Marian’s eyes water, and she wasn’t convinced it wasn’t affecting her brain as well. It had to be. Robin couldn’t possibly be so stupid, so completely oblivious to reality, that he’d actually brought the
cluricaune
to their meeting tonight like some sort of fox to be cast off in one of those mockeries of a hunt the richer members of the county liked to put on. Her temper flickered inside her, but she tamped it down, drew in deep breaths through her nose, remembered the pungent fey, and breathed through her mouth instead.

“I am here as I agreed to be,” she said, her voice thickened by her attempts not to breathe in through her nose. “Whatever you intend for me to help with, let’s be getting on with it. I’ve no time for games.”

The bear shifter—Little John, Robin had called him—glanced at Robin and there was some sort of warning in his eyes. Robin ignored him and gestured at the
cluricaune
.

“This is what I intend for you to help me with. Collin here has been eating the Flannerys out of house and home and drinking most of the wine merchant’s profits. They’ve been trying to oust him for years, but he keeps coming back, always manages to tag along even when they moved across the county eight months ago.” He looked at her and there was an eager light in his eyes, a thick expectation in his voice. “It’s time he was punished—just like those men from last night.”

Her voice abandoned her, burnt away by the surge of fury that exploded like an inferno from that one spark of temper she’d tried so hard to smother. Her mouth opened and closed, the words swirling in her brain, trying to find a way out. The
spriggan
—Will—slowly sat up, rose to crouch on the balls of his feet. His amber eyes flickered with interest, and tension wove through his muscles as he seemed to sense the change in her.

Attention narrowed on Marian, Little John’s fingers curled and uncurled, the muscles in his legs flexing as he shifted from side to side, finding his balance, staying loose in preparation for a leap.

Only Robin was oblivious. The archer was fairly bouncing in place, eager for the hunt he’d obviously been expecting. With a wheeze and a slight choking sound, Marian’s voice finally escaped.

“You listen to me, you man-sized child. I am not here for your
amusement.
I am not here to prance about the county while you stare at me like a wolf watching a fifty pound rabbit, trying to figure out what ‘secret’ that insufferable witch was referring to.”

Some of the amusement leaked away from Robin’s face, his brows dipping slightly as if confused. She took a trembling step toward him and only sheer force of will kept her from braining him with her precious bow. The
cluricaune
lay on the ground, very still as if even in his drunken state, he knew it would be best to go unnoticed. Will swayed slightly in his crouch, a strange smile plucking at the corners of his mouth. Little John took another uneasy step closer to Robin too, though his eyes remained rooted on Marian.

“You and all your talk about the poor, about what a hero you are to them, how you’ve dedicated your time to improving the quality of their lives while worthless nobles like me prance around contributing nothing to society. Well where are those noble intentions now? Gone, flown straight from your mind as soon as you sensed an opportunity to torment me instead, to feed your infuriating need for amusement. Your own entertainment is more important to you than helping anyone.”

“Why does everyone think those two things are mutually exclusive?” Robin muttered. His voice was harder now, bitter with no hint of the amusement that had soaked his features a moment before. He crossed his arms and faced Marian down, daringly dismissive of the threat she posed in her riled state. “What is this obsession you have with misery?”

“I am not obsessed with you.”

He blinked, then his eyes narrowed. “Well that wasn’t very nice.” He drummed his fingers against his biceps, studying her as if he’d never seen her before. “I don’t understand you. I’m giving you a chance to have fun and do something good for people all in one go. You act like I’ve cast ink on your best dress just to see the pretty patterns.”

“You didn’t bring that thing here to do good for the Flannerys, you brought him here to make me chase him down in some pathetic attempt to reveal this other nature you’re so certain I have.”

“Oh,
I’m
the pathetic one?” Robin’s mouth flattened into a cold line. “Am I the one hiding from who—and
what
—I really am? Am I the one who feels guilt for every moment of pleasure, who thinks I can’t possibly be doing something productive, something beneficial to others, if I’m also enjoying myself? Is misery the only way to be a valued member of society? Is that the lesson you gleaned from your foster parents?”

Pain spiked through Marian’s heart and she poured more anger onto the wound, cauterizing it. “Don’t you dare speak of them. Don’t you
ever
speak of them again.”

“Did they only love you when you were in the fields, only love you when you pretended to be human? Is that it? Is that why misery is tied so permanently to love for you? Why you treat it like a disease and run away from anyone who shows the slightest interest in you as a person?”

Little John paused, his bulk hesitating before taking a slow and deliberate step back. He jabbed a thick finger at Will then pointed behind him to the shadows of the forest. Will flicked his gaze over Robin and Marian, hesitating for only a second before rising to his feet and slinking off after the retreating shifter. The
cluricaune
was gone, vanished as if he’d never been there.

Marian was aware of all of that, saw it from her peripheral vision, but none of it mattered. Nothing mattered but the boiling brew of emotions in her stomach, rising like bile to coat her mouth and burn the back of her eyes. Robin closed the space between them, stood so close a hard breath would have brought their bodies together. “Let me in, Marian. Let me show you what it’s like to be valued for who you are, celebrated for what you are. If you would just let me, I could show you how to be happy.”

He reached up to draw the back of his fingers across her cheek, something similar to pity coloring his eyes.

The cauldron boiled over.

Chapter Fourteen

She’s…running.

The crimson of Marian’s dress flew like a sail behind her, darkened by the dim moonlight into a bloody shadow as she bolted into the forest. His cheek itched, as if his skin itself were confused, wondering at the absence of the slap he’d felt coming. That was her trademark, wasn’t it? Violence in response to emotional spikes? That’s what it had always meant before when her eyes darkened like that, when her face pinched with the emotions she seemed so averse to.

But she didn’t hit me. She ran
.

It was a change, a deviation—a clue. And yet the excitement such a tidbit should have brought was absent. Unease rolled in Robin’s stomach on an oily tide. He was moving before he’d made the conscious decision to go after her. He let his senses spread, the awareness that was his heritage as
sidhe
guiding him through the tree trunks, over gnarled roots, around sprawling limbs. The energy of the forest pressed closer, buzzed against his skin, invigorated his muscles, soothed aches he hadn’t been aware he had. He ran faster, leaning forward as he searched for signs of his quarry.

A cacophony of snapping wood ahead of him drew his brows together. She was crashing through the brush like an injured boar. This was not the woman he’d seen last night, the one who had exhibited such grace, who had flowed through the forest with all the silence of a shadow, all the confidence of a
sidhe
.

“I broke her,” he murmured.

“You might have,” a deep voice agreed.

Robin didn’t bother to look at Little John as the shifter fell into pace beside him. The bear of a man didn’t share Robin’s
sidhe
heritage, but he knew these woods like no one else, and his ursine muscles made up for in power what they might have lacked in agility. In a flat race, Robin would have left him far behind, but here in the forest, the shifter easily kept pace.

“I just wanted to see her in action. I was so close last night—
she
was so close.” He clenched his hands into fists, frustration pulling his muscles taut. “I thought if I could recreate the circumstances…”

They leapt together over a particularly thick tree trunk, the wood turned to brittle black by the lightning that had felled it. Ahead, a flock of birds erupted from their perches, screaming in indignation as Marian barreled through their hiding place. He and Little John veered in that direction.

“You dug deep, but what you found wasn’t a creature, it was a woman,” Little John observed.

Robin didn’t take his eyes from Marian, nor slow down to commit to a longer conversation. She was still running, with no sign of slowing down. Her shape was a dark blur, only glimpsed here and there through the spindly trunks of rowans and the sprawling limbs of willows. Frustration plucked at Robin’s nerves. He needed to see her face, her wonderfully expressive face.