The Archer (The Blood Realm Series Book 3)(5)

Chapter Two



She killed him.

Robin rose from his position on his hands and knees, unbending his six foot five frame from where he’d hung himself over the arrow lodged in the tree. His fox glamour held steady, painting the picture of a lazy red fox crunching underbrush beneath its stockinged paws as it scampered off into the bushes.#p#分页标题#e#

Not that anyone was watching to appreciate his attention to detail. The man was dead, the black-striped grey feathers of the arrow protruding from his chest pointing at the beautiful redhead like an accusation. Marian, for her part, stood there as if frozen, vibrant green eyes locked on the corpse. Brushing the dirt from his palms, Robin leaned against the lime green moss-covered trunk of a convenient birch and waited to see what the lovely huntress would do next.

This is so much more interesting than a chase. And just when I was starting to think that witch lied to me. He paused for a moment, trying to remember the witch’s exact words.

“Seek out the one called Marian LaFey in County Brasil… She has a secret… I will tell you no more. If you want to solve the mystery that is Marian LaFey, then you must go home and find her yourself.”

With specifics like that, the woman should have been a seer. Robin tapped a finger against his thigh. He had yet to discover the nature of this secret Marian supposedly had. But perhaps he was about to get a hint…

True to her Amazonian attitude, Marian didn’t lower the bow. Her breasts rose and fell in a calm rhythm, smooth swells all but hidden beneath her cloak unless one was really looking. The hand holding her bow remained steady, none of the shaking that usually accompanied a crime of passion. The only sign that she found the situation at all unpleasant was the grinding motion of her jaw.

“Insufferable man.”

Careful not to make a sound that might contradict his glamour, he angled his body forward, straining to hear her better. She lowered her bow and stepped toward her victim, putting herself directly in the path of a beam of sunlight that had managed to pierce the thick forest canopy. Red hair spilled down her back in a thick braid that glittered in the sunlight like the ribbon of a Winter Solstice present. The skin of her pale face shone, framing eyes that would shame even the emeralds set in the Seelie Queen’s best crown.

Heat warmed Robin’s blood. Many was the time he’d led this huntress on a chase, glamoured himself to look like some pesky beast so he could lure her farther and farther into the woods. It had been a pleasant hope of his that he might get her alone and in a less bloodthirsty mood, perhaps a mood that leant itself to other carnal delights. But alas, the wench had an eye like a hawk and an arm that could hold a bow steady for hours on end. She was not one to be distracted from her prey.

But neither am I.

“Marriage.”

Marian spat the word like a curse and closed her hand around the center of her spent arrow. Robin arched an eyebrow as she jerked it free, tearing the projectile from the fallen man’s chest with all the sympathy of a butcher hacking up a piece of meat. She eyed the tip of the arrow as if debating whether it could be saved, reused.

Oh, I like this one. Perhaps it’s time—

Something caught Robin’s peripheral vision. Movement, a figure dressed in black stepping from behind a tree. Dark hair and a neatly trimmed beard adorned a face that might have been handsome if not for the too square jaw, the cold and calculating look in eyes like twin tar pits. The only thing about him that offered relief from all the darkness was the glint of a metal pendant that hung from a raw leather strand around his neck. Polished iron.

Bit risky wearing iron like that, oh mighty sheriff. The ringing in your ears must be maddening.

Cursing the sheriff’s timing, Robin slid back behind the tree. The iron wouldn’t break his glamour per se—he was too powerful for that, his glamour too strong. As long as he didn’t attempt to lay a glamour directly over the lawman, he could keep himself hidden. However, the damned metal was already weakening the effects of the glamour he was projecting, and Sheriff Mac Tyre was just observant enough, just stubborn enough, that a little crack in the magic’s integrity might prove disastrous. He crouched behind the tree, balancing on the balls of his feet as he peeked around the trunk, watching as the Sheriff’s shadow stretched high to cloud the ground with darkness.#p#分页标题#e#

“No sympathy for your victim then, Lady Marian?”

She whirled around, nocking the bloody arrow in her bow in the same smooth motion. Something about her bearing, the total absence of surprise on her features, told Robin she’d heard the man’s approach, or had sensed it in some other manner.