Chapter 15 | Robin
We took another few hours to laze around the creek, wash ourselves of our filth and depravities, and even continue the debauchery once we were clean.
No one had an answer to Tuck’s question. We let it die on his lips, and I pondered what was going on.
Then, standing knee-deep in the creek, my eyes landed on my mates’ naked bodies scattered throughout the stream, and I lost my train of thought.
Water droplets glistened their toned bodies and hanging cocks, dripping off them like pure sinfulness. Little John was the first to notice the seductive glimmer in my eyes, the press of my lips, and he waded over, splashing water about with his long strides.
He came to me, said nothing, and snarled at the sight of my nakedness. His eyes roamed my body for a split second—from pert breasts to pale hips, to the slight dark patch just above my thighs.
John took me by the shoulders, spun me around, and shoved me against the bank of the creek. My hands landed awkwardly on a stone, and I inhaled sharply as I felt his cock rise once more and glide between my thighs.
His throbbing cockhead pushed through to my front, the ridge toying with my clit, and I groaned. My hand played with his length, even as I dipped my fingers inside my cunt.
He reeled back and slammed into me, lifting my right leg behind my knee to leverage himself and thrust inside. The man’s hard hips pelted against my ass, rippling my flesh harder than the surface of the water rippled from his ministrations.
I moaned aloud, anew, and my voice carried to the heavens. My boneless legs wobbled as he bucked his hips and claimed me once again. I had no defense against his throbbing cock, and all I could do was throw my ass back against him to meet him halfway.
He filled me with his cum, stepped aside, and then Will Scarlet took his place. The shorter man let my leg fall, so I could regain my balance in the creek.
The melding of cool water against my heated skin and core ignited something inside me, and I evaporated once Will shoved his cock into my needy hole.
He took the same position and same raucous pace as John before him, as if trying to prove he was just as manly and dominant as my largest mate—challenging me to believe that it wasn’t the size that mattered, but how they utilized their endowments.
Not that Will Scarlet had anything to complain about in the size department.
He fucked me faster than John, with shorter strokes that were somehow more powerful and intense. My body shook and writhed in front of him, until he curled his rock-hard stomach against my ass, hugged me, and fondled my tits while fucking me in the splashing stream.
One hand skillfully pinched and twisted my nipples. The other came up to rest at my neck, lightly squeezing to force the moans and air out of my lungs.
His cock pulsed, spewed, and he pulled out.
Friar Tuck took no time to join the convoy. His thickness made me gasp when he fed himself inside me. He shook his belly against my back, closed his hands around my biceps to pull back and force me upright, and fucked the senses out of me while the others watched.
We were lost to the lust all over again. There was no escaping the pleasure and the intense climaxes that rolled through my body at a near-constant basis. The headiness swirling in my mind reached a crescendo, robbing me of all thoughts and logic.
Tuck decided to paint the round, rippling swell of my ass with his cum before stepping aside to let Alan-a-Dale have me last.
My golden-haired mate guided his cock into my dripping center and squelched home. My eyes rolled and I fell forward.
He took a dominant position with me—legs splayed apart to give him a firm foundation—like he enjoyed doing with Will Scarlet. Lost was the song-weaver from the other night, intent on telling tales and content with the adoration. Now he was a merciless barbarian, intent on living the tales he told and seeing that I was filled with him.
Alan yanked my hair back and I choked on my own spit.
I gasped from the recklessness of our dalliance—we were adrift in the madness, and I didn’t ever want it to end. This moment in the creek, so impromptu and abrupt, simply confirmed my belief that I had these men forever obsessed with me. I brought their base instincts and ruthless urges to the fore, and they didn’t bother trying to hide them when around me.
My merciless men simply took what they wanted. And what they wanted was me. Always me.
Alan let out a gasp and groan as he pumped his hips one last time, stuffed his cock to the hilt inside me, and held it. His hands pulled my hair harder, until I was nearly bent backwards from the violence of it.
I shook as he filled me with his white-hot cum. When he released me, I flopped forward, barely catching my palms on the rocky bank of the creek while I doubled over and took deep breaths to regain my sanity.
I could feel all four men trickling out of me, spilling between my thighs and dripping into the crystal-clear water.
“Now then,” John said once Alan was finished. “Shall we go back to camp and try to make sense of what has happened to our damned minds?”
THE SUN WAS RECEDING by the time we wandered back into camp. Afternoon had come and gone, with little work done on the site. Wood remained unchopped. Cookfires were unlit. Merry Men were haphazardly littered about the camp in various states of undress and haziness.
Robert blinked at me with eyes that were too large for his face once the five of us returned from our gallivanting. We’d been gone a long time, so I didn’t blame his scrutiny. Yet, it appeared like he didn’t know where he was—his soul detached from his body—and there was a tinge of fear ringing his bright orbs.
A shout from the left had everyone’s eyes swiveling like a turret. Griff tore out of a tent and sprinted through camp with his hands over his head.
“I’ve seen Jesus!” he shouted.
Griff was also entirely nude. Not a spot of cloth on his body, and I blushed at the poor lad’s display as he streamed past me and my mates, body parts flapping in the wind.
A small huddle of girls sitting nearby giggled as Griff careened past them like a madman. The lasses were a mixture of ones from the orphanage and from the sex-slave carriage, arranged in a ritualistic-looking circle.
Griff came to stop at the girl Maria, the lass Much had fancied. Standing stark nude in front of her, Maria’s eyes bulged and her fair cheeks reddened.
Griff went on one knee, as if to propose, and bowed his head. “Maria. Much the Miller’s Son was my friend. I know what he meant to you. I know I’m not him—no one was. But I’ve seen Jesus, and he’s told me what I must do. I vow to protect you in his stead.”
My heart blossomed. If it weren’t for the odd circumstances of Griff’s announcement, and his sorry state, I might have felt even better about what he said.
He raised his head. Implored her with his dewy eyes. “Will you allow me the honor?”
Maria stammered, caught off-guard.
Friar Tuck took the opportunity to walk up to her. Gently, he began saying, “Griff, lad, perhaps—”
“Another time to proclaim your unrequited love, aye?” Alan-a-Dale finished for him, coming to stand next to the maddened boy.
Griff hung his head in shame. “Right. I am without my wits, truthfully.”
“One couldn’t tell,” Will muttered sarcastically.
Little John leaned in and whispered to me. “Something is amiss. Seems everyone in camp is in a state of disarray. Not just us.”
“Aye, it does seem that way, doesn’t—” My breath caught in my throat when I veered my head to the right, to the nearest tent.
The flap was thrown back, allowing me a look inside. And inside were Ada and Gracie—my dear friend Emma’s sister—hugging one another and unabashedly kissing with their legs and arms locked in a fierce, torrid embrace, rolling around on the damned ground together.
I blushed something fierce. Gulped and returned my eyes to John, nodding. “Doesn’t it?” I finished with a croak.
He didn’t catch what I’d been looking at, and thank God for that. I wondered if Emma knew what her sister was getting up to.
“What is it that we all shared, that might have affected us all?” John asked, however rhetorically.
“The food?” I questioned.
He offered a sage nod. “Aye. What I was thinking. Could someone have tainted Bess’ afternoon meal?”
I narrowed my eyes and searched the camp a bit more analytically. I ignored all the wide eyes and sleeping bodies and bare body parts, the ritual circles and girls speaking in tongues, and the embarrassing situation of Griff and Maria . . .
And my eyes landed on Maid Marian, tucked away in a corner of the camp near the shade of a tree. She was seated, rocking back and forth with her arms circled around her drawn-up knees. Marian certainly didn’t seem to be having a good time.
Yet that didn’t stop my blood from instantly boiling.
I stormed across camp, Little John hot on my heels.
When I got close to her, I reached for my waist and pulled out the dagger I kept strapped to my pants—pants that were now damp from dew.
I drew the blade, and all eyes at the camp heard the rasp of steel and looked over to see what was happening.
“What the fuck did you do to our food, charlatan?” I snapped, baring my teeth in a snarl. “What poison did you beset upon us?”
From the ground, Maid Marian looked up at me with huge eyes. Her red curls, which were usually so uniformly positioned, were disheveled and unkempt. Her pristine face was sweaty and even paler than usual.
“W-What?” she croaked.
“You heard me, witch,” I growled, and then crouched in front of her to get to eye-level. “If I’ve learned you’ve tainted our meal—”
“I did nothing of the sort!” Marian yelped. She crawled back on her ass and palms, until her spine smacked against a tree and she winced.
“I’ll gut you from cunt to throat, Marian,” I growled, and my lip twitched. My fingers whitened on the handle of my blade. I could imagine what her silly little perfect face would look like when I plunged this steel between her oversized breasts and gleefully watched the blood spill out of her chest cavity.
In fact, I wanted to be the one to do it. To bathe in her blood and feast on her entrails and—
“Robin,” a stern, deep voice said about me. A large hand fell on my shoulder. The gentle touch of Little John trying to bring me back to reality.
I blinked, snapping to, and escaped my violent thoughts. At least for the moment. But I wanted answers.
“Enough of all that,” said another voice, this one feminine and surly.
Bess waddled out from a tent in a nightgown, shaking her head. Wulfric sheepishly stepped out behind her, wearing only his fur coat, thankfully clasped in the middle to hide his modesty from everyone.
I had seen quite enough immodesty for an evening.
“It wasn’t the red-haired whore,” Bess explained.
I stood, still keeping the point of my dagger thrust toward Marian’s eyes. “Explain yourself.”
Bess stepped aside. “Perhaps you should, Wulfy, you enigmatic little prick.”
The dark-skinned man scratched through his thick white braids. He pouted and sucked on his teeth, tilting his head in apparent shame.
I’d never seen him look so guilty and timid. Apologetic, even.
“Aye, erm.” He cleared his throat. “I may have filled the eating cauldron with the wrong kind of mushrooms this afternoon. I thought they were the kind to eat and spice up a meal. Turns out . . .”
As he trailed off, I lowered my dagger from Marian and leaned my head forward. “Turns out what, Wulfric? Spit it out.”
He threw up his arms. “Turns out they might have been the kind that heighten euphoric sensations and lustful needs. The kind that bend the mind and, at times, cause the subject to inhabit false thoughts and hallucinogenic states when ingested.”
I blinked at him. Nothing he said made a lick of sense. “They were . . .” What were they, even?
He shrugged his shoulders high, to his ears. Gave me a pleading look. “Magic?” he asked, with a hint of hope in his voice.
“You . . . poisoned the entire camp?”
“No, Lady Robin! Not, erm, intentionally, anyway. So, I suppose, yes, then. Yes, I did.”
His shoulders slumped.
I gawked at him.
Heads around camp swiveled to one another, low murmurs breaking out.
Before I could lash out, Little John took up space beside me. He spoke loudly, for all to hear. “Well, we can’t say it wasn’t fun, can we, Robin?”
I fought past a dry throat, and could think of nothing to say. When he puts it that way, it’s hard to argue with.
I said, “How long will this heightened condition last?”
“Oh, no more than a few more hours.”
“Great,” Will Scarlet said, sidling up next to us. “Then we’ll have wasted the entire day and night.”
Alan-a-Dale chipped in. “Was it a waste, though, little badger?” His eyes landed on mine and smoldered with a hint of a smirk curling his lips.
“If all we have to complain about is a wasted day, then I suppose it’s not the worst thing,” John admitted with a shrug.
“And perhaps a sour belly or two, after the fact,” Wulfric replied in a low voice.
I sighed and scratched my forehead. Put my dagger away, and scowled at Maid Marian, who still looked lost in her otherworldly adventure.
Friar Tuck came over with Maria and Griff on either side of him, a shit-eating grin on his face while his heavy arms stayed draped over the younger people’s shoulders. “And we were able to witness a profession of love between two of our own, thanks to it. I’d call this a resounding victory.”
Wulfric’s eyes darted south, across Griff’s naked body. He cleared his throat and glanced away. “Aye. Seems this lad is not able to hide the measure or length of his excitement at the news, either.”
Furrowing my brow, I glanced over and choked, quickly looking away—not wanting to see Griff’s shameless erection any longer than I had to.
Griff caught the hint and looked down at himself. “Oh. Shit.” He covered his body and sprinted off, yelling, “Apologies! Jesus said nothing about this part!” while his pale, bare ass bounced away.
A chuckle ripped past my lips. I hadn’t meant to laugh, but the young lad’s entrance and exit was just too absurd to make sense of. My mates joined in my laughter, and before long even Wulfric was hesitantly giggling like a boy a quarter his age. Only Bess remained stoic and annoyed, shaking her head as she retreated back to her tent.
“Come on, Wulfy,” she ordered. “I didn’t give you leave to stop rubbing my feet.” With that, the two of them disappeared, but not before Wulfric gave me a helpless smile and apologetic shrug.
“Jesus Christ in a peat bog,” a new voice called out.
It sounded familiar, yet also slightly alarmed.
My heart shot to my throat. I looked over in the direction Griff had run off and smiled wide.
Uncle Gregory stood next to Captain Briggs on the outskirts of camp, his arms crossed over his barrel-chest. Behind them stood a line of travelers, all aghast at what they were witnessing.
Griff ran naked past them, and my uncle took one look at him before examining the state of our camp.
It was not the greatest representation of the Merry Men, admittedly.
“Uncle, you made it!” I shouted happily. When I noticed his dour expression, my lips peeled back in a regretful pout. I rubbed the back of my neck, humiliated and ashamed. “You’ve, uh, come at an odd time. One might say a moment of transition,” I said helplessly.
“Naked lads running amok with their little cocks flapping in the wind, dear niece? Crazed eyes in confused faces? One would hope this is simply a ‘transition,’ and not indicative of a larger problem, Robin.”
Robert ran past me and straight for Gregory. He took our uncle by the shoulders and shouted frantically in his face, quite seriously, “Thank God you’re here, Uncle. I think the birds have started talking to me. Can you translate?”
Gregory frowned over Robert’s shoulder at me, even as my brother tugged him into a fierce embrace. His voice was flat as he said, “Sorry, lad. I don’t speak bird.”
“A shame,” Robert huffed.
I met Gregory’s eyes. He did not seem amused.
“Um, welcome to the Merry Men?” I called out, throwing my arms out. “I assure you, dear uncle, my camp doesn’t always look like this.”
TWO HOURS LATER, EVERYONE was starting to regain their sanity. Starting to feel like themselves. We had the fires going again, and another brisk night awaited us. Everyone huddled close together, and ate Bess’ evening meal with a bit more trepidation than earlier.
It was a shame Wulfric had inadvertently tarnished Bess’ stellar cooking reputation. At the same time, with the benefit of hindsight, the situation was quite comical.
This would be one hell of a story to tell, and I had a feeling Alan-a-Dale was already writing the song of it. He was over in a corner by himself, scribbling furiously on a scrap of hemp, with his lute splayed over his knees.
John and Tuck sat next to me. I didn’t know where Will had run off to, but I didn’t care at the moment. I was worn out from our overly eager, hallucination-infused affair from earlier. Every muscle hurt, and my mind felt empty and blank.
Robert had been widening our camp to make room for the Oak Boys’ arrival. Suddenly, in a matter of hours, our site was entirely too small for all the people we had lounging around. We would need to find another hideaway soon—one big enough to house all of us.
It was a good problem to have.
I was just ready to plop my weary head down for sleep when Will made his appearance at our campfire. He stood over it, crossing his arms with an expression of grim tidings marring his face in the flickering fire.
“Maid Marian is gone,” he said.
My stomach dropped. “Pardon?”
Everyone at the campfire darted their eyes up to him in alarm.
“I wondered where she was, so I slunk off to find the sneaky bitch,” Will explained. “And she’s gone. She’s nowhere in camp. One of our horses is gone, too.”
“Fuck,” John said, hanging his head between his knees. “Not this shit again. And she stole another horse from us?”
“Are you really that surprised, John?” Tuck asked.
“Might not have poisoned us,” Alan pointed out, “but made her true colors known nonetheless. Tuck’s right. We all knew this would happen.”
Rosco the head guttersnipe waltzed up to our fire. “Penny-snatcher failed to mention another problem on our hands,” he drawled, eyeing Will. “Tick is gone, too.”
“Wait. What?” I said, flabbergasted.
Rosco nodded. “Sure as shit. Must have gone with the witchy redhead.”
“Likely seduced him with sweet nothings and false whispers,” Tuck said with a sigh.
“Tick is hardly even a man yet!” I cried out, standing and incredulously tossing my arms out wide.
“Calm your storm, little lordling,” Rosco said, raising a palm at me. “Marian will have no luck corrupting ol’ Tick between her ample tits, if I know the lad at all.”
“Why not?”
“Because he fancies a certain bucktoothed lad called Jimmy. Even if he ain’t never admit it. Why you think he’s so sickly over Jim’s disappearance?”
My head swam. “It doesn’t matter. This is bad.”
“Truly is,” Rosco said. “Should we rally the horses? Call the cavalry? Mayhaps we can cut ‘em off at the pass.”
Little John snorted. “What pass? She’ll already be in Nottingham by now, knowing our luck. Who knows when she left?”
“True you are, too, big man.” Rosco nodded and tapped his chin. “What, then? We just wait? Seems wrong.”
Little John eyed the rail-thin guttersnipe. “Aye, Rosco. We wait for news. Luckily she wasn’t here long enough to glean too much about us, other than our whereabouts. But she already knew that part, clearly. So we either wait for news . . . or we wait for the ransom letter that’s sure to come.”