As soon as he and the guard had moved out of hearing distance, he spoke to Glen out of the corner of his mouth. “Remain in the forest at the edge of the property and keep yourself out of sight. I want to know when Lady Marian returns and what she does—whether she’s alone. Remain here until she retires for the night and you are certain she will not leave again, then come and report directly to me.”
“Yes, sir.”
Glen’s face was smooth and composed, but there was a heavy tension in his voice and the horse's reins whined in his white-knuckled grip.
“Do not confront Lady Marian or the fey under any circumstances,” Mac added meaningfully.
Glen’s shoulders sagged in obvious relief. “Yes, sir.”
Mac nodded and turned his attention to the road ahead, urging his horse to a canter. He had to get back to his home, back to the wolves.
He had a job for them.
Chapter Eleven
Marian slowly opened her eyes. The last rays of the sun were trailing fingers of orange and pink across the sky, every beam chased by the growing shadows of the night. The thick, strong branches of a tree stretched over her head, shading her from the first silvery touch of the moon.
Her body weighed a thousand pounds. She blinked and felt the sandpapery burn of many tears cried. She hadn’t cried in a very long time. Not since the night she’d sneaked back into the house after an impromptu midnight hunt and overheard her mother crying and her father trying to soothe her.
“We’ve failed, love. We’ve failed her.”
“Ach, don’t cry, love. It might not be as bad as all that. She’s just at that age. It’s a rebellious phase, it will pass. You’ll see. Soon she’ll pitch that awful bow of hers and she’ll be there in the fields with us. The call of the land is strong, especially to the fey.”
“Not all the fey, love, and well you know it. I’ve had the nightmares again. She shot young Todd two weeks ago, could have killed him. What if she hears them some night? What if she joins them?”
“She’s not joined them yet. There’s still hope. Until then, best not to worry. Keep faith in the land, and in us. We’ve raised her right. It’ll win out. It has to.”
She could still feel her bow in her hand, feel how heavy it had grown in the wake of her parents’ conversation. Like an anchor, dragging her down into the dark depths, away from the light—away from them. Their voices had followed her back to her room, haunted her the rest of that night and many others. It had been confirmation of what she’d feared since the day she’d discovered she wasn’t their blood, discovered she was…other. They loved her like a daughter, yes. But deep down, they feared her.
Seeing them again had brought it all crashing back. She—
Seeing them again.
They were dead.
Robin.
Fury traveled like a spark down her spine, sizzling as if chasing the dry lead of a fuse. Her brain ceased its emotional introspection and performed a lightning fast inventory of her circumstances.
Her head wasn’t resting on the ground, but rather on something warm, sculpted, thick with muscle.
A thigh.
Holding very, very still, Marian strained to listen for sounds of breathing, concentrated on the thigh beneath her head, tuned in to any movement. Robin was still, perhaps he was asleep. She slid one hand over the ground, trying not to move any more than absolutely necessary as she searched for something she could use as a weapon.
“Don’t even think about it.”
Robin’s voice held a gruff edge that suggested he’d fallen asleep at some point, but unfortunately he was awake. Stealth held little value now, so Marian hefted herself into a sitting position and twisted to face him. She froze as she noticed her own bow in his hand, held loosely in the reclining fey’s long fingers. Green eyes narrowed at her from a chiseled, pale face.
“If you try to hit me again, I’ll hit you back, chivalry be hanged.”
“Hit you?” Marian frowned, then noticed for the first time that the skin around one of Robin’s green eyes was a little puffy, just enough to suggest that it had been blackened not long ago. “Again?”
“That’s what I get though, isn’t it? Trying to comfort a sobbing woman. Nothing but a fist to my eye.” He snorted and rolled his head from side to side, his long blond hair catching against the rough bark of the tree he leaned against.
Slowly the events of the day came back to Marian. The trip to the courthouse, the glamour of a prisoner and guard, the bleeding sheriff. Then the argument as they’d left. She’d broken his ankle, had been about to shoot him, rid herself of him for good and he’d…
Her mother and father’s voices echoed back to her, but she shoved them away with a mental scream. That wasn’t them!
Something of what she was thinking must have showed on her face because Robin tightened his grip on the bow, his expression wary. She swallowed the lump trying to form in her throat and glared at him as if that alone could destroy him.
“You bastard. I wish I’d shot you when I had the chance. How could you…” Her throat threatened to close, the emotion he’d called up inside her still far too close to the surface to speak of.
“You broke my ankle,” Robin pointed out, arching an eyebrow. He gestured briefly with the arrow to his now bare foot nestled in a soft bed of leaves and grass. The skin was still a mottled purple, but the swelling was nowhere near what it should have been. “I hardly think you’re in a position to chastise me for cruelty.”
Marian weighed her chances of reaching his ankle for another twist before he could swing her bow around like a club, but reluctantly dismissed it. Even if he were incompetent, they were far too close together for him to miss, and his reflexes were beyond a mere mortal. She forced herself to settle back on the ground, but she put every violent urge she had into her face, let him see how she truly felt about him.
“You think a broken ankle is comparable to what you did to me?” She had to speak in a whisper to keep her voice from breaking into a sob. She could still see the faces of her foster parents, still hear the weight of disappointment in their voices, the sadness in their eyes when they looked at her. She’d never thought to feel that pain again.
Robin’s face remained composed, as smooth and perfect as fresh snowfall—except for the slight swelling around his eye. Green eyes studied her and she felt every line of her face being scrutinized, every lingering trace of salt from her tears examined. Finally, he let out a long, slow breath through his nose.
“Perhaps not.”
His words were a balm against the fury rising inside her, the need she felt to lash out, to hurt him as badly as he’d hurt her. She wanted to hold onto the rage, the comfort it offered, the protection. But another part of her, a part deep inside where she hardly ever dared to look, wanted something more.
“How did you know?” she asked quietly.
Robin settled the bow on the ground, trading it for a blade of grass that he proceeded to roll between his fingers. “I heard enough conversations between you and that gardener to get the gist of it. Your foster parents were peaceful sorts who lived to work the land. You have the temper of a sober clurichaun and never look more alive than when you’re pursing the death of another creature. It wasn’t difficult to deduce that such a difference in outlook may have strained your relationship with your foster parents.”
Marian dropped her eyes to the ground, remembering what he’d said about her expressive face and not wanting him to see the chaos raging inside her right now. “You spied on me for a long time, then.” She tried to sound angry, tried to be angry, but she was suddenly very tired. Exhausted down to her bones and beyond.
“Yes.”
The fresh scent of pulverized greenery filled the air as Robin continued to toy with the blade of grass. The scent reminded her of her mother. She’d always smelled of fresh greenery after coming in from the fields.
“Why?” Her voice wobbled, a wet sound that promised more tears. She cleared her throat,
groped for the thread of the temper that had always been her curse. “Why spy on me? What did I ever do to earn such attention?”
For a moment, she was certain he wouldn’t answer. Or worse, he would answer, but in a manner that muddied the question more than answered it. He surprised her by dropping the now-limp blade of grass and meeting her eyes.
“A witch told me you would interest me. I watched you to see if she was right.”
“A…a witch?” She braced an arm against the ground, holding herself up as she stared, brow furrowed in confusion. “A witch told you to watch me?”
Robin drummed his fingers against the ground. “Well, sort of. She didn’t call herself a witch, she called herself something else. Hoodoo something, I think. And it wasn’t really her, now that I think about it, it was some sort of god. Not the god, she was quite clear about there only being one god. A strange notion, but then, what do you expect from that corner of Sanguennay?”
“A… Wait a minute. You’re telling me that a witch from Sanguennay told you that I would be interesting to you?” Marian clenched her hands into fists, fingers digging muddy furrows into the ground. “I’ve never even been to Sanguennay! Why would this…god, sic you on me like that?”
“I’m not a dog,” Robin responded testily. He ripped another blade of grass from its bed and began peeling thin strands off one by one.
Marian went still, even her chest ceasing to rise with her breathing. She waited, every nerve ending screaming at her. Had his choice of words been chance, or was he toying with her? She risked a glance at his face and found nothing but residual annoyance. Slowly, some of the tension seeped from her muscles. “What did she tell you about me?”
“Not a blasted thing, really.” Robin leaned forward, winced, and reached behind him to unhook a lock of hair from a random twig sprouting from the trunk of his backrest. “She wouldn’t say anything beyond that I would find you interesting. Typical for a god, really, they never do give you the whole story.” He smoothed the freed lock of hair behind his head and held it there as he leaned back again. “Oh, and she said you had a secret. At the time I thought she might be having one over on me, dropping a bunch of blarney in the hope that some of it would end up true. Still, on the off chance that there was something interesting in my own back yard, I crossed the pond again to have a look.” He looked her in the eye then, and it was that unnerving stare he’d given her before, the one that made her feel like a rare insect under a magnifying glass. “And you have been rather interesting.” He rolled his eyes. “And violent. Hadn’t expected that.”
A howl built up in Marian’s throat. It rose from the depths of her being, the darkest recesses that she tried so hard to forget about. Like a swollen thistle, it drew blood as it rose, trailing a fiery pain in its wake. She swallowed, hard, and it slowed, but didn’t stop. Her lips started to form an ‘O’ and she pressed them into a hard line, determined to trap the sound inside.
Fantasies paraded through her mind like a ghostly promenade. The “hoodoo” woman the fey spoke of, holding the essence of her god, not-the-god. It was her fault Marian was saddled with this infernal pest, her fault that her precious secret was in jeopardy—her life was in jeopardy.
I will find you, witch. I will hunt you down and I will make you suffer for the wrong you’ve done me. There is no where you can hide, no where you can run. I am—
It wasn’t movement that pulled her from her fantasy. It was stillness. A complete and utter stillness, like that which comes over prey when a predator comes too near. A heartbeat throbbed in her ears, and it wasn’t her own. Her face rose, nostrils flaring as the spicy scent of adrenaline called to her.
Robin had grown so still it took her a moment to see him. Dressed all in green, he did a fair job blending in with the forest, seeming to melt into the moss-covered trunk he leaned against. The only way he could have made himself less conspicuous would have been to cloak himself in his maddening glamour and Marian spared a thought to wonder why he hadn’t. But then she looked into his eyes, and she knew.
He was watching her. Watching her with an all-consuming intensity she never wanted to feel from anyone, an intensity that bored through her façade, through her mask of civility, deep into the core of her being until she felt naked, her very soul bared to that emerald stare.
He knows.
“I will lead you to the witch.” His voice was low, so soft it was almost as if he hadn’t spoken at all, like his words had been her own thought echoing in her mind. “Let me in, Marian, and I will hunt with you. You don’t have to hide from me.”
“I do not need your help to track the witch.” Her rising temper dragged her voice down to a growl she couldn’t clear from her throat. She bared her teeth, the urge to bite him tingling in her jaw. “I don’t need you at all. Leave me!”
Faster than a March hare, he sprang forward, powerful legs propelling him into her like a warm battering ram. His hands closed around her arms with bruising force as he shoved her back to the ground. His legs bent and angled out so he landed astride her, holding her prisoner against the soft blanket of grass.
Rational thought fled and instinct took hold of her muscles. She pressed forward with his arms, waiting for the responding pressure as he fought to hold her down. As he leaned forward, she snapped her arms out to the sides. His arms followed hers, his hands still gripping her wrists. He had no way to stop his head from dipping to meet her forehead as she brought it smashing into his nose. He shouted and released her to roll to the side and into a crouch.
The scent of blood perfumed the air between them. Distantly Marian was aware that the scent would trail after him if he ran, would lead her to him no matter how fast he ran, or how far. She could find him now, track him down and—
A hand closed in her hair. She hadn’t seen him move, hadn’t expected a second attack so quickly. He spun his hand once, twice, wrapping her hair in his fist so tightly it sent an ache deep into the very bone of her skull. He pulled her head back, baring her throat and forcing her to look into his shining green eyes.
Her muscles ached with the need to change. Her flesh cried out, her nerves singing with the tension that haunted her every time she hunted. The same tension she remembered from the nightmares that showed her what would happen if she stopped fighting her other nature. If she let herself become what her foster parents had urged her against. What her birth mother had been. The mother who’d abandoned her, left her to die in the woods.
She screamed. Rage filled that one long sound, ran out of her body like blood from a puncture wound. Her mind rang with the sound, echoed the fury and desperation.
I. Will. Not. Change.
“Stop fighting it.” Robin jerked on her hair again. “Show me what you are.”
A masculine shout burst the tense silence of the surrounding forest, the abrupt noise breaking the spell of Robin’s shining stare and deep, gravelly voice. It was a man’s shout, ragged and full of pain. Robin’s head snapped up and he stared at something to the left, the wild light still giving his eyes an inhuman shine and the blood smeared in the center of his face a macabre mimicry of war paint. Marian took advantage of his distraction, turned her cheek and bit his wrist. Force made up for blunted canines and she was rewarded with a hushed curse and a loosening of the pressure tugging at her hair.
She rolled away from Robin and he let her go, glaring at her over his bloody flesh. His eyes glittered like a fox peering at an unguarded chicken coop, and there was a promise in that gaze that said this battle wasn’t over. His patience for learning her secret was waning.
His blood coated her tongue, teased her senses. He didn’t know what he was getting himself into, didn’t understand the consequences of unleashing the secret he wanted to know so badly. She was closer to letting go than she’d ever been in her life. It would be so easy…
Another shout shattered the stillness between them, this one thinning into a scream. For one second, Marian and Robin shared a perfect moment of understanding. The
y whirled to face the cries, redirecting the energy they’d raised fighting one another and turning it out at this new threat. It wasn’t far, the sound coming from no more than twenty yards away. Marian dropped low to the ground, began to creep forward, eyes scanning the forest before her as she sought the source of the scream. Robin prowled beside her, his own injuries forgotten in the heat of their investigation.
A man lay on the ground. He was broad in the shoulders, but his limbs still held the gangly thinness of a youth who had not yet fully grown into his body. His short mop of brown hair stuck out at odd angles, darker in spots. Marian’s nostrils flared. Blood. He was bleeding from a cut, or cuts, on his head.
The rest of his body had suffered the same mistreatment. He was bare-chested, dressed in only a threadbare pair of sienna pants. Blood painted his visible skin, pouring from long gashes and stripes that marked him from face to stomach.
Four men stood over him. His hands were raised in front of him to protect his face as a large stick came down to land with a meaty thud on his shoulder. The one holding the club was scrawny with scraggly blond hair and beady blue eyes like half-melted ice chips. He curled his lip into a snarl, baring yellowed teeth as he brought the club up in preparation for another blow.
“I’ll teach you to cheat us!” he screeched.
The man on the ground didn’t risk looking up, but spoke through the arms covering his face and head. “It was a fair fight. I won. The gold…is rightfully mine.”
“Liar!”
This time the other three men, brutes of varying sizes, marked as comrades only by the similarity of their simple and sturdy clothing and cruel, jeering faces, joined in the beating. They kicked and shouted, sneering as they hurled insults at the downed man. One of them was bare-chested and without shoes, just as the man on the ground.
A wrestling match gone awry.
The thought threaded through the haze in Marian’s head, helping her think through the primal instincts trying to seize control of her body. She’d seen situations like this before. Gangs who preyed on foreigners, convinced them to put up whatever gold they had, offered to match it as a prize for a wrestling match. Winner take all. The money never left their possession. Anyone who actually beat their man was quickly accused of cheating and pummeled within an inch of their life.
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