Page 75 of Wench

Before he can recover, she slams the butt into his temple. Her chest heaves, but she doesn’t stop. She spins the spear in her grip, feeling the strange rightness of it, and darts toward the sergeant, whose eyes widen at her approach.

He uses his sword to cut his horse free from the cart and bares his teeth at Marian.

‘You’ll burn for this, girl,’ he spits. ‘You and this wretched forest.’

He yanks his horse around with a savage jerk and digs his heels into its sides. The animal surges, finds purchase where the roots have pulled back, and bolts.

Marian grits her teeth and looses another arrow in his direction, kicking the air in front of her when it misses.

‘Will!’ Lox bellows, pointing after him.

‘I see him,’ they snap. In the next heartbeat, they spring to a branch, limbs as sure as a squirrel’s, and become a shadow running along a bough.

The remaining men-at-arms see the tide turn and start to break, abandoning the fight and peeling off into the trees.

For a moment, there is only relief. Allen whoops something obscene about the Sheriff’s mother and vaults onto the wagon like a triumphant magpie. He plants himself on the driver’s bench and turns to Little John. ‘Darling, be a dear and put that big, beautiful body of yours to work?’

Little John winks at Allen and lifts the handles of the laden cart with ease, before they both look to Lox.

‘Go.’ He nods. ‘Rían will know where to store it.’

Night folds back around them as Allen and Little John peel away. Silence falls so quickly that Marian flinches when a jay calls. Her hands shake but she doesn’t hide it. She’s alive in a way that makes her skin feel too small for her body.

Lox notices.

‘Are you hurt?’ He is at her side in a breath, gaze raking over her with clinical precision.

‘A few scrapes and bruises,’ she sighs, wiping the wet earth from her cheek. ‘But mostly mud.’

‘Good,’ he says softly, brushing a crooked finger across her chin. He gestures to the path and they start back toward Elswyth.

The trail out of the clearing leads into the old arteries of Sherwood. Marian matches Lox’s stride, but her pulse won’t listen; adrenaline keeps it galloping, sluicing brightness into everything. He flexes his fingers at his sides, as if restraining the impulse to keep touching her just to be sure she’s whole.

But she wants to be touched. She wants to be pressed open against bark, to ride the edge of survival into something reckless.

‘Everything all right?’ he calls out over his shoulder, a wicked grin tugging at the edge of his perfect face.

She arches a brow he can’t see and lets her tone turn careless and deliberate. ‘Why do you ask?’

He stops and slowly turns. The gold in his eyes flickers, and her heartbeat jumps. ‘Your heart is hitting like a woodpecker. And . . .’ He closes his eyes for an instant, inhales. The sound he makes is half-laugh, half-surrender. ‘And there are other parts of you that are just as . . .tempestuous.’

Colour rushes into her cheeks, but instead of running from it, she leans in. ‘At the Severing, you said you wanted to ruin me sweetly against every tree in Sherwood.’ She eyes their surroundings before tugging him closer. ‘Care to make good on your promise?’

‘Oh, you wicked little fox,’ he murmurs, his voice torn and tender, and pulls her into his arms.

They steal along the seams along the main path. Every tree becomes a screen, every shadow a room. She laughs once – a sharp, startled sound – when a jay scolds overhead. The forest closes rank around them and everything narrows to the scrape of bark at Marian’s shoulder blades, the drag of cloth, the staccato of her breath when he kisses her.

They move together in a wordless liturgy. He presses her to a broad mossy trunk and cups the line of her thigh; his fingers press, gentle then firmer. She answers with small, needy noises that make him grin against her mouth. The want between them gathers like a storm.

Lox spins her around, pressing her chest into the tree, and crowds the space behind her. He grips her with a sense of certainty that steals her breath. His fingers slide into her pockets, squeezing her inner thighs through the fabric until Marian is shaking with anticipation. He inches her trousers down until the cool night air bites against her exposed skin. Heat presses at the hollow between her legs, hungry and bright as freshly forged metal.

She rocks back into him, thighs parting just enough to confirm where she wants him. Lox’s mouth moves along her jaw, teeth grazing, his breath already ragged as his fingers sink inside her. The sound that ripples out of both of them is both prayer and penance.

Marian’s forehead tips against the trunk as his fingers work her open. Bark scrapes across her palms, grounding her even as her body sinks greedily into every movement. Lox presses close, his hardness straining against her, his hips nudging with every shallow thrust of his hand. His breath rasps against her ear like he’s trying to memorize the cadence of her pleasure.

‘Saints,’ she gasps, the word trembling out of her as his thumb circles in time with his strokes. Her thighs quake, the cool air around them only sharpening the heat coiling in her belly.

Lox’s mouth is at her neck, teeth grazing the tender spot below her ear. ‘That’s it,’ he breathes, words hoarse. ‘Tell Sherwood what you want. What youneed.’