The Archer (The Blood Realm Series Book 3)

by Jennifer Blackstream

  THE ARCHER

  Blood Realm Series: Book Three

  "The hunter becomes the hunted… "

  A master of lies seeking the truth…

  Robin is a sidhe whose glamour is unrivaled. More than mere visual illusions, he creates phantasms that smell real, sound real, feel real. A notorious trickster with an attention span even shorter than his temper, he spends his time haunting the forests of the kingdom with his merry band of misfits, robbing anyone who enters the woods with more gold than good sense. Redistributing the wealth to the less fortunate has given him a hero’s reputation, a novelty that helps to stave off the boredom he detests so passionately. But now something—or, rather, someone—has snared his attention…

  A huntress in hiding…

  Marian wants to be left alone. Alone without the gardener’s constant nagging about her lack of care for her lands, alone without the company of the narcissistic men who won’t take no for an answer, and alone without the infuriating fey who’s harder to lose than a bad cold. She’d dispatch him herself if she wasn’t already under the weight of a four hundred pound eric for murder…

  Gold changes hands, and Marian’s eric is paid with Robin’s gold, indebting her to him and roping her into his band of thieves. Will the sidhe discover her secret? Will he survive it if he does?

  THE ARCHER

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  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note:

  Bonus short story: The Unwanted Guest

  Preview of ALL FOR A ROSE, book one in the BLOOD REALM series

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  About the Author

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  Copyright

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  Chapter One

  Come on, you wee bugger. Just a little bit closer.

  Marian held her breath and stared down the thin length of her arrow at the bushy red tail flicking around the base of a tree no more than thirty yards ahead. The white tip waved in a mockery of a flag of surrender, but the little beast remained stubbornly protected by the thick trunk of the rowan. She licked her lips in anticipation, willing the sly fox to put just an inch of its tender hindquarter a little farther to the right…

  “Lady Marian!”

  A deep female voice thundered through the trees, the sound reverberating down the shaft of Marian’s arrow. The bushy tail vanished, her vulpine prey becoming no more than a blurry red streak as it bolted across the forest floor and vanished into the brush.

  “Argh!” Marian dropped her bow, arrow still nocked in a pathetic refusal to fully acknowledge the lost opportunity. Her finger itched, the indentation in the pad a reminder of how long she’d been holding that shot, how patiently she’d been waiting for her prey to make itself vulnerable. All ruined now.

  She ground her teeth, sending a dull, throbbing pain through her jaw. “This is unacceptable.”

  “Lady Marian, there you are!”

  Sticks snapped under the steady, heavy gait of someone who had no business traipsing around the woods when there was hunting going on. Even if she hadn’t recognized the voice, she would have recognized those footsteps. Loud, confident, and completely oblivious to anyone else’s need for silence.

  “Damn your eyes, Ermentrude, what is it now? The little blighter’s gotten away, so this had better be good.”

  Ermentrude came to an abrupt stop, muddy brown eyes darkening as her ruddy face flushed an even darker shade of red. “Damn my eyes, is it? Well that’s a fine how do you do. And haven’t I come all this way down here to fetch you when by all rights you were supposed to meet me in the gardens more than an hour ago?” She huffed, cheeks bloating with the force of the expelled air. “Damn my eyes, indeed.”

  Blast and drat. Is it that late already? What time was that meeting? Noon?

  Marian pulled the arrow from her bow, tapping it impatiently against her thigh. “Ermentrude, I must remind you again about your tone, to say nothing of your volume. You’ve just cost me my prey—a fox that I have no doubt you’ll be complaining about come the morrow when you find your garden has once again been made into a series of food cubbies for our local red tails.”

  Any other servant would have backed down, bowed her head and apologized immediately. Of course, any other servant wouldn’t have spoken to the lady of the house in that manner to begin with.

  Ermentrude crossed her chubby arms as best she could, her coarse brown gardening vest crumpling under the duress. Her eyes narrowed until they looked like wizened almonds. “It’s not my garden, Lady Marian. It’s your garden. A garden in which we were supposed to meet to discuss progress as per arrangements you agreed with yesterday.” She shook her head, her fraying straw hat threatening to fly off somewhere to die a respectable and long-deferred death.

  She’s got you there. You did agree to the meeting, and you are the one who missed it. The proper thing to do is apologize.

  “And I was on my way to the meeting when I spotted the fox and remembered what you were saying yesterday—I believe in the same conversation that the meeting was mentioned.” Marian jabbed a finger at the other woman. “You said the foxes were tearing up the garden, and there was nothing to be done about getting rid of them on your end and so I needed to do something about it.”

  “I said you should have something done about it. And by that, I meant delegate that task to someone else so that you could see to the work already on your schedule.” Ermentrude solidified her stance, planting her feet firmly shoulder width apart as if expecting the confrontation to grow physical.

  It was a laughable thought. If only she knew how laughable.

  “I do not like to delegate work that I am more than capable of taking care of myself.” Marian removed her arrow and replaced the unused ammunition in the quiver at her back. “That is not how my parents raised me.”

  Ermentrude anchored her hands on her ample hips. “You have no problem delegating all the work in the fields. Is that the way your parents raised you?”

  A lump rose in Marian’s throat, stopping up anything she might have said. An image of her parents rose in her mind, her mother who was no more than a hundred pounds soaking wet and her father who wasn’t much taller than Marian had been at sixteen. When she remembered them, they were in the fields, kneeling in the dirt, elbows deep in seeds, weeds, or fertilizer. So many of her memories placed them there. It was where they’d been their happiest. Where they’d belonged. Where they’d wanted her to belong.

  Her bow sank and dangled at her side from fingers slowly chilling into ice. Ermentrude was right. She hadn’t been in the garden or the fields in weeks. And what would her parents have said about that? Her parents who had wanted nothing more out of life than dirt under their fingernails and the sun at their backs? The parents who had taken her in
as their own, a little orphan found muddy and crying in the woods after a storm that by all rights should have killed her. The parents who had been so hopeful that their adopted daughter would carry on their legacy when they were gone.

  The world went misty as tears welled in her eyes, shimmering there without falling. They must be rolling in their graves over how I turned out.

  “I’m sorry, Lady Marian.” Ermentrude’s voice softened and she dropped her arms to her sides. She wrung her hands a bit and tilted her head to try and meet Marian’s eyes. “I didn’t mean anything by it.”

  Marian turned her cheek, unwilling to share this moment with the gardener.

  “You’re right of course,” Ermentrude continued feebly. “I have got an awful habit of speaking out of turn.” She shuffled her feet, stirring up the earth that matched her muddy boots until it looked as though her legs had melted into the forest floor. “I’m sorry, Lady Marian. It won’t happen again. Please don’t cry.”

  “We will have to reschedule our meeting.” She forced the minced words past the lump in her throat through sheer willpower and unpinned the lapels of her cloak. Light, moss green material closed around her body and washed around her legs, and for a split second she wished she really could disappear into the surrounding greenery like some kind of forest sprite. “I will try to make some time tomorrow.”

  Ermentrude shuffled uncomfortably. “As you wish. You know where to find me.”

  There was no censure or disbelief in Ermentrude’s voice now, but Marian’s psyche was only too happy to fill it in. The servant politely lowered her chin and turned to lumber back the way she’d come. Every footstep she took was a condemnation of Marian’s deplorable loyalty, her total lack of dedication. Every pace took Ermentrude closer to the gardens that Marian’s parents had loved so dearly. The gardens Marian couldn’t bear to be in for more than a moment, the gardens that held not even the briefest flicker of interest no matter how hard she tried. The order and calm of the gardens couldn’t compete with the wilderness, the unpredictability of the forest.

  The hunt.

  Groaning wood tickled her ears and Marian abruptly eased her grip on her bow before she snapped it in two. She took a slow breath in through her nose, willing the tears back where they’d come from, and holstered her bow across her chest, the string a welcome and familiar pressure.

  Something brushed against her leg, rustling the skirt of her teal-toned dress. Her brow furrowed as she gripped her cloak and skirts and slowly pulled like she was drawing a curtain. Beady little black eyes blinked at her before squeezing shut as the fox scratched its chin against her toe, features tight with concentration.

  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 he
r 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…”