The Archer (The Blood Realm Series Book 3) (2 page)

Marian’s jaw dropped. “Why you little…”

The fox yipped and took off, leaping over fallen branches and plowing through piles of twigs and leaves, forest debris flying into the air. Marian’s bow was already in her hand, the other plucking an arrow from her quiver as she threw herself into fierce pursuit. A flood of adrenaline burned away the painful memories, lifted the weight from her chest so she could breathe again if only for this moment.

The tears dried and her vision sharpened, bringing every leaf, every twig, every flicker of movement into crystalline focus. The branches of the towering willows, rowans, ash, birch, and oak bowed and waved as she zigzagged over their roots, silent even in her haste. The sharp scent of wet earth from last night’s rain, the aroma of crushed greenery, and the bite of rustling pine filtered past her nose, immersing her in the world of the forest. Of the hunt.

Her prey danced just ahead of her, its red fur a slash of vibrant color in the green and brown of the trees. Marian leapt up on the trunk of a fallen oak, careful not to slide on the slippery coat of moss. Her bowstring sang with tension as she pulled the arrow into place. One more flicker of movement and she let it fly, exhaling a moment before release. The arrow flew straight and true, sharpened point meeting its fleshy target—

And hit a tree.

Marian gaped at the quivering arrow, her body completely still, not even breath stirring inside her. The arrow was buried an inch deep in the smooth silver bark of a young birch—and not in the rump of the pointy-eared pest.

“That’s not possible. I hit it! It was a perfect shot!”

“Ah, but even a perfect shot can go awry. Can’t it, lass?”

The male voice turned Marian’s stomach, the familiar greasy tones like a tangible stain on her skin. She clutched her bow tighter, barely resisting the urge to draw another arrow and hold it ready just in case. Still perched on the tree trunk, she pivoted on one heel to face the owner of the voice.

Guy of Gisborne was a small man in every way. Stick thin with a belt that needed extra holes just to keep his trousers up, and boots so small he had the look of a cloven hoofed creature. There was scarcely enough room on his face to fit two eyes, a nose, and a mouth. His ears clung for dear life to a skull dusted with wiry strands of brown hair that rallied against being confined by the hat perpetually flopping around his head like a wilting mushroom cap. His eyes never quite seemed to fully focus, always darting left and right even when he was speaking to someone. He was less a man and more a mouse. A nervous, scheming little rodent who escaped predators for no other reason than being too pathetic for any self-respecting predator to rouse itself for.

“Lady Marian, how wonderful to see you again. I do hope your presence here is an indication that you have given my offer further consideration?”

Marian bared her teeth in a grimace. “I have not. You shame us both with the asking anyway, and well I think you know it. Now get off my land!”

Watery brown eyes blinked, real confusion knitting his brows. “Your land? But, my dear lady, you are on
my
land.”

“Your land?” Marian curled her lip into a sneer as she stood to her full height—an impressive six foot even. With the added height of the tree trunk she still stood on, and Guy’s own miniscule stature, she may as well have been a goddess looking down at an insect. “You’ve gone dumb then, on top of everything else. This is my land. And you will leave now or be evicted with due force.” She pointed at him with her bow as she spoke, part of her hoping he would insist on staying, would give her a reason to remove him.

Guy scratched his head, twig-like fingers threatening to send his limp hat to the ground. “Lady Marian, I do hate to argue with a lady, but you are most definitely on my land. Turn your pretty face but an inch and you’ll see my home atop the ridge.” He dropped his hand and leaned closer, leering as he dragged his gaze up and down her body, revealed by the part in her cloak. “In fact, why don’t you come home with me and I’ll give you a proper tour? You can see what could be yours if only for one little word.”

“Never.” Marian bit off the word, but a growing sense of dread curled like a rousing dragon in her stomach. She may know little of gardens and fields, but she knew her forest, knew every branch of every tree and each stone and patch of moss.

This was not her forest.

Her cheeks burned.
Oh, gods, have mercy. How far did I chase that little red trickster?

Guy’s leer broadened into a smile. “How about a drop of the creature before you go? I’ve a bottle of whiskey my great-uncle dug out of a bog—left by the fey themselves no doubt. We could toast to our coming happiness.”

Choking back a growl, Marian hopped down from her perch, stiffening her spine as she turned to head back home. Not yet noon and already her day had gone to the goblins. What next?

“I must insist you stay, Marian.”

“
Lady
Marian,” she spat over her shoulder. “And I wouldn’t stay for all the gold at the end of the rainbow.”

“It’ll cost you all the gold at the end of the rainbow if you don’t shut your mouth and do as you’re told.”

Ice hardened his words with an uncharacteristic arrogance. The hair on the back of Marian’s neck stood up, instinct prompting her to draw. She nocked the arrow, but kept her bow lowered. The blush fled from her cheeks as she turned and lifted her chin.

“Excuse me?”

The little mouse of a man eyed her with a gaze much sharper than it had been a moment ago. He pointed off into the distance. “You’ve been hunting on my land. Without permission. Again.”

Marian followed his finger and her lips parted. The fox she’d been hunting—the cause of this whole mess—was hanging by the arrow lodged in the birch. No, not hanging by—hanging
over.
The little bugger had draped its body over the arrow and apparently gone to sleep.

“That— It— I— That fox isn’t dead!”

“It looks dead to me.”

“The arrow isn’t even going through its body, you mad fool!”

“So I suppose it just decided to have a lie down atop your arrow? A little catnap for a fox?” Guy chuckled, a sound like a rusted spoon on a tin milk pail.

Snarling, Marian took a step toward the fox, ready to wring its miserable neck. Guy planted himself in front of her, blocking her from her intended path. A bold move, considering how easy it would have been for Marian to crush him beneath the heel of her boot.

He craned his head back to peer up at her. “You’ve hunted on my land and by Brehon law I’m entitled to compensation.”

Instinct urged her to lash out at the little prey that was so foolish as to openly challenge her. Her hands shook and she gripped her bow tighter, beating back her temper before it could get the better of her. “Keep the animal if you’re so sure it’s dead then.” 

“I don’t want that animal—I want you.” His eyes zeroed in on the gap in her cloak again. “All of you.”

She lifted her bow, the point of her arrow pressed between his pectorals. He went still, his fingers a hair’s breadth away from her hip. Every muscle in her body screamed with the desire to loose the arrow, to watch it impale the man who’d dared try and lay a hand on her. “I am leaving now.” She forced the words out through clenched teeth, every syllable breathy with restrained fury. “Do not try to stop me again.”

The infuriating man actually
smiled.
“For three generations your family and mine have been neighbors. And in all that time, my family has wanted to merge our properties, combine them into the grand estate we know they could be. But
your
family…”

He wrinkled his nose as if he’d tasted something sour. “Your family has always been so difficult. Never agreeing to sell, never agreeing to any sort of arrangement.” A gleam slid over his eyes. “But now, it will finally happen. This is the fifth time I’ve caught you hunting on my lands. I’m sure I’ll have no trouble convincing the judge your penalty should be…appropriately severe.”

“It’s only been three times.”

She sucked in a breath, wishing she could recapture the admission. Guy squared his shoulders, trying to look down his nose at her even though she was taller than his five-foot-four by at least eight inches.

“So you admit to hunting on my land on more than one occasion.”

He’d raised his voice, calling out as if performing for an audience. Marian frowned. “Why are you shouting? I’ve not gone deaf.” She cast a glance around the forest, studying her surroundings for some sign that they were not alone. “Have you brought someone with you?”

“I’ve spoken to the king.”

Marian snapped her attention back to Guy. “The king?” She searched his face for some hint that he was bluffing, joking, anything but serious. The trees overhead doused his face in ghoulish shadows and chills raced down her spine as his thin lips curved.

“Yes, Marian. The king. I was able to get an audience with him with the help of a family member, and when I told His Majesty about my poor female neighbor who doesn’t know a thing about working the land, and who can’t even manage to stay on her own property… Well, the king was only too pleased with my idea to offer you help and stability by agreeing to marry you.”

This is a nightmare.
Marian’s arms nearly went limp as she shook her head. “This can’t be.” 

“Indeed, it can. His Majesty confided in me that he wishes more women would admit to the need for a man’s touch around the estate. After all, a woman rules home and hearth, one cannot realistically expect her to manage the lands and hunting grounds as well.”

“You’re mad. I will never marry you, not even if the king himself thinks it’s a splendid idea. You are a weak, repulsive little man, and I wouldn’t sully my boot stepping on you let alone…” She trailed off, too disgusted to finish the thought.

Guy stepped closer, brazenly ignoring the arrow pressed against his belly. Marian only barely registered the warmth as he closed his grubby hands around her hips, tried to haul her against him. “Oh, my sweet Marian.” His voice was too high, thin as if he were almost too excited too breathe. “You will come to my bed, Marian. And you will be grateful for it.”

The world blurred behind a red curtain of fury, instinct claiming her body, moving it as it willed. Her foot made contact with his chest, muscles flexing as she kicked out, sending his body hurtling back. She took one, two, three steps back, breathing evenly with each one, her breath roaring in her ears. The arrow trembled in her grip, stilled, and then…

Chapter Two

She killed him.

Robin rose from his position on his hands and knees, unbending his six foot five frame from where he’d hung himself over the arrow lodged in the tree. His fox glamour held steady, painting the picture of a lazy red fox crunching underbrush beneath its stockinged paws as it scampered off into the bushes. 

Not that anyone was watching to appreciate his attention to detail. The man was dead, the black-striped grey feathers of the arrow protruding from his chest pointing at the beautiful redhead like an accusation. Marian, for her part, stood there as if frozen, vibrant green eyes locked on the corpse. Brushing the dirt from his palms, Robin leaned against the lime green moss-covered trunk of a convenient birch and waited to see what the lovely huntress would do next.

This is so much more interesting than a chas
e.
And just when I was starting to think that witch lied to me.
He paused for a moment, trying to remember the witch’s exact words.

“Seek out the one called Marian LaFey in County Brasil… She has a secret… I will tell you no more. If you want to solve the mystery that is Marian LaFey, then you must go home and find her yourself.”

With specifics like that, the woman should have been a seer.
Robin tapped a finger against his thigh. He had yet to discover the nature of this secret Marian supposedly had. But perhaps he was about to get a hint…

True to her Amazonian attitude, Marian didn’t lower the bow. Her breasts rose and fell in a calm rhythm, smooth swells all but hidden beneath her cloak unless one was really looking. The hand holding her bow remained steady, none of the shaking that usually accompanied a crime of passion. The only sign that she found the situation at all unpleasant was the grinding motion of her jaw.

“Insufferable man.”

Careful not to make a sound that might contradict his glamour, he angled his body forward, straining to hear her better. She lowered her bow and stepped toward her victim, putting herself directly in the path of a beam of sunlight that had managed to pierce the thick forest canopy. Red hair spilled down her back in a thick braid that glittered in the sunlight like the ribbon of a Winter Solstice present. The skin of her pale face shone, framing eyes that would shame even the emeralds set in the Seelie Queen’s best crown.

Heat warmed Robin’s blood. Many was the time he’d led this huntress on a chase, glamoured himself to look like some pesky beast so he could lure her farther and farther into the woods. It had been a pleasant hope of his that he might get her alone and in a less bloodthirsty mood, perhaps a mood that leant itself to other carnal delights. But alas, the wench had an eye like a hawk and an arm that could hold a bow steady for hours on end. She was not one to be distracted from her prey.

But neither am I.

“Marriage.”

Marian spat the word like a curse and closed her hand around the center of her spent arrow. Robin arched an eyebrow as she jerked it free, tearing the projectile from the fallen man’s chest with all the sympathy of a butcher hacking up a piece of meat. She eyed the tip of the arrow as if debating whether it could be saved, reused.

Oh, I like this one. Perhaps it’s time—

Something caught Robin’s peripheral vision. Movement, a figure dressed in black stepping from behind a tree. Dark hair and a neatly trimmed beard adorned a face that might have been handsome if not for the too square jaw, the cold and calculating look in eyes like twin tar pits. The only thing about him that offered relief from all the darkness was the glint of a metal pendant that hung from a raw leather strand around his neck. Polished iron.