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I blushed as I stepped into the water. It was frigid, chilling me to my core, yet I couldn’t deny the thrill of it washing over my skin.
Once I was waist-high, I bent my knees and ducked lower to submerge myself up to my neck. I didn’t enjoy strangers staring at me, and Maid Marian was nothing if not a stranger.
She went behind me and wet my hair, dragging her fingers through it. “Men are easy to control if you know which buttons to push, girl.”
“My name is Robin.”
“I didn’t ask.” She cleared her throat. “Don’t want to get too attached to the Merry Men’s property, you see?”
I gasped. “Why?”
“Because you won’t be here long. They never are.” She yanked a tangle out of my hair, cutting off my response as I winced. “God, when was the last time you washed this mop?”
“Why do you say I won’t be here long?”
Her hands moved from my hair to my shoulders, gently rubbing water over them. “You want to call me a bitch, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Go on, it’s okay,” she urged. “I’ve been called worse. I’ve been called worse today.”
I frowned, sinking lower into the water to wash my face.
“You won’t be here long because you don’t have staying power. You don’t have the fortitude to become a proper cunt. You don’t have the drive to do the things necessary to stay.”
“You know nothing about me, Maid Marian.”
“I’ve seen enough. It doesn’t matter what I know about you—it’s not about you. The hostages always get traded for loot. It’s what keeps this operation running.”
I twisted away from her hands to face her. “What makes you think I want to stay? Like you said, I’m a hostage. These men are awful.”
Her face softened, in the way a cat’s might before it clawed your face. “Oh, honey, everyone wants to stay with the Merry Men. Lad and lass alike. You saw what I saw. But no one has been able to manage it. Except me.”
“You have staying power.”
“Precisely.” She inclined her chin, and moved on to wash her own enviable body.
I didn’t want to delve too deeply into the assertion that just because the men were wildly attractive and bestial in a way I’d never seen before, a noblegirl like me wouldn’t be able to resist their charms . . . or their cocks.
Maybe I did want them to ravage and destroy me. Perhaps Maid Marian wasn’t wrong. I would never admit the depths of my depraved mind when left to my own devices.
“Fine,” I said defiantly, “let’s say you’re right, and I wanted to stay with these brutes. You said I can’t do it. But you also said you would teach me.”
Her red lips curled into a smile. “Oh, I can teach you to look innocent and willing. I can teach you to fuck. I can’t, however, teach you to become someone you’re not. Sooner or later, they’ll see past your façade. And then you’ll be finished.”
She was making a lot of assumptions about me. I didn’t appreciate it. That being said, she was probably right about all of it.
“If you really want,” she said, noting the disappointment on my face, “you can be my ward. Shadow me, if it tickles your fancy.”
It didn’t. This woman was too full of herself. I couldn’t help but try and get back at her for her initial comments about me. I was nothing if not petty.
I said, “Be the ward of a whore? Seems a bit of a step down from my natural place as a noblewoman.”
Her face froze. The haughty expression tilted into something fierce and dangerous, like a female version of the men when they stared hungrily at me.
I thought she would lash out at me with her nails.
Then she burst out laughing. “Oh!” She clapped. “But you are funny.”
