Chapter 40 | Robin
Sheriff George groped at my breasts, licking my face with his disgusting tongue. He kept his knees pinned on either side of me, straddling my hips, and fumbled with the front of his pants.
The three soldiers snickered cruelly as they held my arms down and watched.
I snarled, nostrils flared like a caught animal. I wouldn’t cry through this torture—I was no longer that person.
Then flashes of memory came back to me in fragments: Peter Fisher, trying for the same thing, pulling at me and demanding of me things he didn’t deserve; the cries of Enid in those woods near the carriage, as the rest of the young women were forced to listen to her attack in a drug-addled daze; the cool chain of my shackles wrapping around Red’s neck, who had only ever wanted cruelty; the purple-faced bulge to his cheeks as I suffocated the life out of him; a guard choking me with my shackles minutes later, and the lynch-mark that remained tattooed on the skin of my neck—a symbol of what these wretched fiends had tried to do to me.
It was the story of every woman in this damned realm. I was the embodiment of the suffering, and now I faced it full-on in the dark, salacious, sadistic eyes of my nemesis.
This time, I had no human skull to crash against Peter Fisher’s face and lodge into his eye socket. Had no manacle to wrap around Red’s throat. No one to shove a man off me and protect my modesty and dignity.
I had no recourse . . . at all.
I was truly helpless.
And that sinking feeling was worse than death itself, because it opened a cavernous wound inside me that siphoned all the spitting rage and snarling anger, and turned it into pity, victimization, and fear.
Unbridled terror, as Sheriff George freed himself from his trousers and fisted his despicable excuse for a cock. He curved his split lips and licked my face again, and I recoiled.
A heavy sigh came from behind him.
Boots rumbled the soil, even as the mud and grass bit into my flesh like tiny daggers.
“I think I’ve seen quite enough.” Sir Guy of Gisborne’s raspy voice. “I’m disappointed, George.”
Guy was suddenly standing next to George, staring down at me as the Sheriff defiled my body.
George shot a look over his shoulder, brow creasing with wrinkles. “What are you babbling about, eh?”
“I suppose I should be disappointed in myself.” Guy’s eyes softened, brow arching with something I’d never seen before in him.
It looked like remorse.
“I thought I could fix you.”
George growled. “What—”
Guy’s thin blade plunged through the side of George’s neck, jutting out the other side like a spit pig over a fire.
For a moment, George simply looked confused. Then the shock of impending death sucked all the pallor from his cheeks. Guy had drawn his blade and struck so swiftly, no one reacted for three heartbeats.
George’s eyes bulged. A gurgling bubbled from his mouth, and a waterfall of warm, sticky blood spilled down his neck and mouth onto my face and chest.
I inhaled sharply, squeezing my eyes shut as the overbearing weight of Sheriff George sunk into me.
When I opened my eyes, Sir Guy withdrew his blade just as fast, wiping the red on his pants.
“F-Fuck!” a stammering guard exclaimed.
Guy backpedaled, sword at the ready at his side, point toward the ground.
Sheriff George had become dead weight on top of me. I struggled to breathe, and my mind spun in shock. Something like hope careened through me in ribbons.
With a grunt, I heaved George partway off me.
The three guards jumped to their feet, fumbling with their weapons.
“Well?” Guy said matter-of-factly. “Have at thee.”
He spun at one before the guard could swoop his sword off the ground. The man’s fingers went flying and he screamed.
The two other guards attacked Guy and he darted and bobbed around their attacks.
One of them managed to get a glancing blow along his side, and Sir Guy winced before carving a thin strike across the man’s throat.
Guy’s sword was so precise and surgical that the cut didn’t show for a second—just a black line across white flesh.
Then the wound split open in the next second, and the soldier gurgled blood and went to his knees, clutching his neck.
The final guard looked around, over both shoulders, and still had an expression of awe and disbelief on his face. “Help!” he screamed. “Hegrrck.”
He was silenced by the whistling arc of Sir Guy’s sword.
Once the three men were dead at his feet—four, counting Sheriff George—he crouched beside me.
Using one hand from Guy, and all my strength, we shoved George’s corpse completely off me. I took in a shallow breath, gasping for air.
Guy smiled down at me. It was not a kind smile, or a helpful one. It was the typical mysterious sort of grin I’d come to expect from the gaunt man.
This time, though? How could I have ever expected him to kill his master in order to save me?
I was flabbergasted.
On the other side of the hill, to the north near Ravenshead, a loud bell went off and reverberated through the sky.
Guy stuck out his hand and I took it. He helped me to my knees. I chanced a look over my shoulder and saw the alarms going off downhill, bright dots of lit torches littering the horizon.
“Seems you are discovered, little mouse.”
I blinked at him in stupefaction. “. . . Why?”
His brow furrowed. “Either your mates down the hill were loud enough to wake the dead with their little skirmish, or the man I just killed had quite a hefty voice on him when he yelled for help. Who knows, for sure?”
The utter asshole. “You know that’s not what I mean, Guy. Why did you help—”
“I told you once before. I’ve never helped you, Robin. I’ve only helped myself . . .” Guy reached forward with his free hand, and I tensed with a sharp gasp. He was reaching for my chest . . .
Only so he could grab the flapping bits of torn cloth and close them at the middle, hiding my breasts.
Our eyes locked.
His lips curled in a smirk.
A quick tug of his brow filled his face with surprise, shock, and I heard a sound like the wind wheezing.
“Fuck.” Guy looked down.
I followed his eyes.
An arrowhead protruded from his collar, out his chest, dripping blood.
Guy frowned. “That’s unfortunate.”
With a yelp, I sat up completely, peering over Guy’s shoulder.
My brother stood fifty paces away, bow in hand, nocking another arrow, a stern expression like stone on his face.
“Robert! No!” I shouted.
All Robert could see was Guy’s hand shoved against my chest as he helped close my ripped tunic.
But of course it looked entirely different to someone so far away. It looked like, well, four dead bodies lying in pools of their own blood next to me, with our most inimitable enemy fondling me.
Guy staggered from a crouch to a knee, and looked over his shoulder.
I heard the whoosh of crackling air and the fierce, thudding impact a second later.
Guy fell back into me as the second arrow took him in the chest.
“Brother!” I cried. Tears welled in my eyes.
Robert pulled a third arrow from his quiver.
He aimed.
My chin trembled, and all I could do was watch.
“He’s r-really . . . quite good at that,” Guy spit out through gritted teeth. “Oliver of Mickley, eh?”
With a snort, Guy stumbled into my body. I put a hand on his back to try and keep him upright, but he was growing so heavy.
The third arrow took him in the chest, not a blade’s length away from the other one. His breath came in spurts, ragged and choked.
I cradled the back of Guy’s head, our faces inches apart.
Blood trickled out the corner of his mouth, and the man had the audacity to wink at me. “It was an . . . enjoyable game . . . little mouse.”
“Damn you, Gisborne!” I wanted to pound on his chest, make him open up to me. Make him explain himself. If he died, I would never get the chance to learn his secrets.
Robert was sprinting over now, seeing that his target had fallen.
Guy lifted a weary, quivering hand, and wiped my tears from my cheeks. “Now, now . . . Robin of Loxley. That’s n-no way to . . . act. Be joyous.”
I sniffled and shook my head. “You saved me.”
“And you saved me.”
My brow furrowed.
He said, “Now give . . . me something . . . true. Let me steal from you.”
I worried he already had stolen something from me.
My heart? Is it possible? Could this—
Guy’s hand tangled into my hair and cupped the back of my skull before I could finish my thought. My eyes widened when he pushed himself up and slammed his lips over mine.
“Sister!” Robert called from twenty paces away, boots pounding on the grass.
The world stopped around me. My heartbeat slowed as Guy’s tongue slipped over mine. I could taste the blood in his mouth. Heat rushed over my skin.
Then he pulled back with a smile, his sinister eyes graying. “There. Now we’re . . . even.”
“Even?”
He squeezed my hand. His grip was so weak.
“You’re a thief of hearts . . . little mouse. A kiss in life . . . and a kiss of death.”
He closed his eyes, still smiling. Head slumped in my lap. I put a hand to his chest next to the arrows protruding from him and felt the heartbeats slow, slow—
And stop.
I wiped my nose with my forearm. “Sir Guy?”
I gently shook him.
Robert stood over me, panting. “Robin! We’ve got to go. Soldiers are en route. More than we can handle.”
I looked up blankly. I wanted to be angry at him, but how could I? He looked so helpless and pitiful right now, staring down at me in confusion, eyes wide like a child filled with wanderlust.
He reached down. Just how Guy had reached down to help me up.
“B-But . . . Guy?” I asked.
“He’s dead, sister. I won’t apologize for it.”
My lips folded into my mouth. My chin trembled. The shouting from the northern side of the hill was growing louder.
“And the others?” I asked.
“That’s what we need to find out.”
His words hit me a moment later. It shocked me back into my body, and I gave him a firm nod.
I still had John, Will, Tuck, and Alan.
Men who I knew loved me, and I loved them.
Fiercely.
With a final look down at my lap, I frowned at the handsome, pale face staring up at me.
Guy of Gisborne looked at peace in death.
It was where he belonged.
I took Robert’s proffered hand and stumbled to my feet. He averted his gaze, bashful, and I looked down. My torn shirt had opened, exposing me. I covered myself completely—like Guy had done moments before meeting his end.
We ran from the hilltop, heading south, leaving the bodies where they lay. I wished I could have defaced Sheriff George’s corpse on my way out, but alas.
The darkness inside me seemed weaker after the deaths of Sheriff George of Nottingham and Sir Guy of Gisborne.
And the entire time we ran for our lives, down the sloping meadow and into the trees, I thought of that kiss from Sir Guy, and I wondered:
Oh, what could have been.