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“Little more than a whelp, looks like.”
My hopeful, treacherous heart plummeted once more.
Chapter 3
Little John
My body ached. Had been for days. Weeks, maybe.
I wasn’t sure how long I’d been shackled to this filthy wall. The days had all rolled into one.
I didn’t give a damn about that. I was used to manacles and chains. No, it was my heart that hurt worst of all. Even as the bruises on my body healed, the weight in my chest grew heavier.
Besides, the bruises would always return. The more days that dragged on, the more my captors tortured me.
The last thing I remembered from the archery tournament was the sight of Robin skittering from one staging area to the next, disappearing as I tried to keep up and chase her down to make sure she was safe.
After sticking me with poison, Sir Guy of Gisborne must have dragged me away. Brought me somewhere dark and damp, with no sunlight and plenty of sickness seeping from the walls. It was a small miracle I hadn’t died of some horrible illness by now.
I attributed it to my resilience. My desire to see Robin again . . . if my little star still lived. Who knew what happened to her without me there?
No, I told myself, as I’d told myself every day since opening my eyes to this wretched place. Will, Tuck, and Alan will make sure she’s safe. They must. They will.
Guy spent days healing me from my poisoning, only to break me all over again. It had become routine. My captors did unspeakable things to try and wrench admissions from me. I wasn’t certain Guy was aware of what the Sheriff of Nottingham was capable of, or what Sheriff George had been doing to his prized prisoner. Seeping poison into my ears worse than the toxins coursing through my veins.
Yet I still hadn’t broken. I wouldn’t tell them what they wanted. Wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of hearing me squeal or complain or cry for mercy.
One day, I thought I noted a hint of respect in Guy’s eyes, at what I’d endured and continued to endure.
It was either respect . . . or pity.
I refused to be pitied. It made my blood boil just thinking about it. The shackles around my wrists and ankles clanked as I shifted my weight from one side to the other, facing the wall.
Wrapping my arms around my torso to stave off the chill, I closed my eyes and tried to think of nothing. I wanted to relieve my mind of Robin and the Merry Men, even as I felt a phantom touch of her warm hand against my shoulder, brushing across my scars—
My eyes shot open.
The touch seemed so real. I chanced a hopeful look over my shoulder, only to see the gate to my cell open and Sheriff George and Sir Guy waltz in.
“There he is,” the Sheriff said, his voice a middling croon that hurt my ears to hear. “Our prized prisoner.”
Sheriff George of Nottingham was a middling man in all respects. Neither handsome nor ugly. Neither tall nor short. Everything about him screamed lackluster and mediocre. He had a sadistic streak, which I figured he’d gained to offset that mediocrity and make himself seem more extraordinary than his plain face, plain stature, and plain countenance would normally allow.
Sir Guy of Gisborne, on the other hand, was intriguing. A tall, lithe, menacing figure. The best swordsman in the land—which I could vouch for—and perhaps the best archer in the realm, too, if he’d won the tournament disguising himself as the masked “Oliver of Mickley.”
But if he was Robin’s chief competitor in that tourney—Oliver—how would he have found me in the trees? Could he be that calculating, waiting for the secluded final match to throw the bout just to get to me?
Guy’s dark eyes told me he was that calculating.
Logic told me it was an impossibility.
If Guy was not in disguise at that tournament . . . then who the fuck was Oliver of Mickley?
The thought made me shiver. Or maybe that was the soft breeze blowing across the cell as George opened the gate and Guy closed it behind them.
There are too many dangerous people in this fucking land.
It made me righteously furious I wasn’t out there to protect Robin. With me in here, and the killers out there, it left my girl vulnerable.
