The Archer (The Blood Realm Series Book 3) (38 page)

Will’s words poured down her spine like liquid silver, hardened, helped her stand straighter. “And if I choose not to?” she pressed.

A shadow fell over Herne’s face, darkening his skin, making the shine of his strange eyes stand out even more. “You are a member of my court. I am your king, and you are my soldier. I will not dictate the day to day details of your life, but when I command you to come, you will come, and when I give you an order, you will follow it.”

“No. I won’t.” Every word that made it past her lips fed the strength growing inside her. The conviction. It didn’t matter what life waited for her in Herne’s court. She had the life she wanted. And she wasn’t leaving it behind. “For better or worse, I have found people here that need me. I have a purpose, something that will bring me joy and at the same time bring joy and great benefit to those around me.” She met his eyes, and this time, she stood straight, proud. “I have made my choice. I am staying here.”

Herne stared at her as if she’d announced she was going to leap into the air, turn herself into a three-headed butterfly, and somersault over the horizon. Marian wasn’t sure what she’d expected, but the fact that Herne didn’t look angry fed the tiny flame of hope she’d thought was all but extinguished. She started to smile, her confidence blossoming.

“This is about the
sidhe
, isn’t it?”

Marian’s blood turned to ice, smile shattering and falling away from her lips.
He knows about Robin.

Herne rubbed the bridge of his nose and sighed. “Then the sheriff was not mistaken as I had hoped.” He let his hand fall and met Marian’s eyes, held them as if daring her to look away. “It was your little human sheriff who called me here. The wizard Casan was his intermediary, but I had the…unique experience of speaking with the man Mac Tyre.” He began pacing again, that slow, maddening circle around her, a wolf circling its prey. “He promised me a hunt, you know. A challenge such as I had never faced. A woman of mysterious heritage. I should have realized it was you.”

He passed into her sight again, and he seemed larger somehow, more threatening. The antlers on top of his head loomed over her, making him seem much taller than his already considerable height. Or maybe she was shrinking.

“He told me you were hidden by a
sidhe’s
unrivaled glamour. Robin Hood, I believe he called him.” A pained expression tightened the skin around his eyes. “It was futile of me to hope that he spoke of someone other than Robin Goodfellow. Gods know that
sidhe
is a pest I don’t need.”

She swallowed back the whimper that tried to escape at the sound of Robin’s name on the hunter’s lips.
Goddess, please, keep Robin from his path.

“He told me of the relationship the two of you have developed these past few days. The good sheriff believes the
sidhe
has been quite a bad influence.” He faced her now with the stern, disapproving look of a father. “Robin Hood—Robin Goodfellow—is a self-involved brat whose mother should have taken him to task centuries ago. He is a very poor influence, and I don’t want you to have anything to do with him.”

Marian tried to keep her emotions from her face, tried to school her features into what she imagined subservience must look like. Herne pressed his lips into a thin line and she knew she’d failed.

“The
sidhe
is not like us, Marian. And do you know what the most important distinction is?”

She couldn’t speak to answer, couldn’t even shake her head. Her mind was full of horrible, macabre images of Robin and what might happen to him if Herne turned his focus to the
sidhe
. If he willed it so, he could bring the entire Wild Hunt down on Robin Hood, on his friends. They wouldn’t stand a chance.

Herne cupped her jaw in his hand, scratched under her chin. Marian wanted to bite him, wanted to scream at him to go away, to leave her alone. The fact that her body tried to tilt her head back, to give him better access to her throat, only infuriated her, bolstered her determination to give him nothing, to make him see that she would never be part of his court. Herne dropped his hand, but there was an anticipatory gleam in his eye that set off alarms in Marian’s head.

“We are true predators, Marian. Robin Hood thinks himself a predator, thinks the rich and cruel of this kingdom are his prey, but there is a very big difference. A true predator knows that as soon as you let your prey steal all of your concentration, make you blind to everything else…you
become
the prey.”

A shout punctuated his sentence. A man’s voice. A very familiar man’s voice. Horror blossomed in Marian’s chest, turning her ribs to icicles, stabbing at her lungs until it hurt to breathe.

The sheriff appeared from behind one of the thick oak trees. The smile on his face had surpassed its previous intensity, painting his mouth in the broad sweeping lines of a jack o’ lantern. His eyes burned into her soul as he stared her down from behind the man he was using as a sort of human shield.

Robin
.

The
sidhe’s
face was twisted with pain. The sheriff had his left arm bent behind his back, was using it as a handhold to force Robin forward. He took a hobbling step, his body arching up in an odd contortion that looked painful. The sheriff’s right hand hovered at Robin’s side and as Marian looked closer, her stomach rolled.

The sheriff’s hand was covered in blood. Robin’s blood. It poured from a wound in his side in a crimson wash. There was something strapped to the sheriff’s hand, buried in Robin’s flesh. Marian raised her face, scented the air without thinking.

Iron
.

He’d stabbed Robin with iron. The acrid scent of it scraped against her senses, added a sickening finality to the coppery perfume of Robin’s blood. Iron-inflicted wounds were immune to the enhanced healing of the fey. Robin would heal human slow. He wouldn’t bleed to death as quickly as a mortal, his fey healing would speed blood production even if it couldn’t heal the wound. But if the wound were serious enough…

The muscles corded in her neck, rock hard knots under her skin. Her bow was in her hand, an arrow pulling the string taunt with a calming and familiar song. The sheriff’s face made a fine target, far bigger than she needed at this range.

“Stay.”

Herne’s voice cracked over her like a whip, banded around her like the unforgiving tentacles of some great beast. Her muscles locked into place, turning her to a statue ten feet away from Robin and the sheriff. She couldn’t release her arrow, couldn’t move at all. Strands of muscles groaned in protest as she fought against the strange compulsion. The force took on a razor’s edge, slicing into her with every attempt to pull away. A whimper gathered in her throat like a piece of sour candy and she ground her teeth, crushing it, swallowing it back.

Robin’s eyes were wide, his skin covered in a sheen of sweat. He jerked away from the Sheriff, though it was a weak attempt, as though his strength to fight ebbed the longer he kept glancing between Marian and Herne. His attention sharpened to a fine point, piercing Herne. His emerald eyes were molten, like vats of boiling acid, their painful vibrancy a strange contrast to his paling face.

 “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.