Page 12 of The Wicked Prince

“She’s like this because of you!” Robin’s hair fell into her face. The same person holding her was pulling Robin’s hand out of her hair. “Rob, it’s alright, just take a deep breath.”

Marian. It was Marian.

Robin reached for Marian’s arm, clutching her cousin closer as she tried to breathe.

“M—Marian.”

“I’m right here. It’s alright. Everything is going to be alright. What can I do to help? What do you need?”

The last time Robin had felt like this…

“J—Jon,” Robin choked out. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Prince John standing in the room. His eyes widened, and for once he looked completely caught off guard. Robin tightened her grip on Marian. “Little Jon.”

Robin was too focused on her breathing to do anything but barely register the way Prince John’s face fell and then hardened.

“That’s not happening.”

“Your Highness, you don’t understand. Little Jon practically raised her.” Marian continued to rub her hand up and down Robin’s back.

“That might be, but that doesn’t mean I’m letting her anywhere near him or her other lackeys. In fact, I have every right to send them to the gallows.”

Robin wasn’t sure where the noise she made came from, but it was something completely animalistic, and Marian’s arms tightening around her was the only thing that gave Prince John enough time to scramble far enough away that Robin couldn’t claw his eyes out. “You wretched, conniving coward!”

“I’mconniving? I’m not the one that tried to get married under a fake name!”

Robin stilled completely. Marian’s grip around her was still tight, but they all knew Marian wouldn’t be enough to stop Robin. Her cousin was half her size. Robin could see a little more clearly now. Guy hovered near Prince John, a hand on the hilt of his sword, his eyes on his wife.

“Go.” Robin rolled her shoulders, dislodging Marian’s grip.

“Rob, are you sure?”

“I want to speak to myhusbandalone.” Robin’s voice darkened into something guttural on the word.

“Your Highness, I don’t think—” Guy started, eyeing Robin, but Prince John met Robin’s gaze and silenced Guy with a raised hand.

“As my wife, your princess, commands.”

Robin didn’t look away, but she heard Marian and Guy leave, the door clicking shut behind them. Now that she could breathe and see, she realized she had no idea what room she was in. She’d never seen it before, but it was full of ornate green and brown furniture. It wasn’t the one she’d been staying in for the last two weeks. The one Marian and an army of handmaids had gotten her ready in that morning. That morning when she hadn’t had a single nerve because she’d had a plan.

A plan now ripped to shreds.

After a moment of silence, Robin’s turning stomach making her too sick to even speak, John put a hand on his hip and gestured with the other. “Well? Did you really think I’d fall for your little annulment trick?”

“You trapped me.”

“I made a deal with you and you tried to give yourself a loophole, an escape hatch, a way to get an annulment.” Prince John huffed, his hand moving through the air, one finger up. “And no. You know what?Yes, I did trap you. I came up with a trap and I caught you, and I’mproudof it. The outlaw everyone said couldn’t be caught,I caught. Not just once, but twice.” He held up two fingers. “I saw every option, every way you could escape and I blocked every single one. So sure, call it a trap if you’d like. But at least I was honest about it,Roberta.”

The sound of her real name brought out another guttural scream. “Don’t call me that! How do you even know that?”

“Right, that’s a little formal now that we’re married. Well, since you insist, Berta—” Robin grabbed the closest object, disappointed it was only a pillow, and threw it at him. He batted it away and continued, “—when you stole the golden arrow right out from under me and I saw underneath your hood, I discovered everything we thought we knew about you was wrong. So I needed to find out who you were. How else did you think I created the perfect trap I did? I discovered you were Marian’s cousin everyone believed was dead, and I knew you wouldn’t miss her wedding. Especially to one of your enemies.”

Wait… If John had known who she was this entire time…

“Discovered?” Robin rasped. Not remembered?

“I had to do some digging. I looked at every appearance there was of you. I noticed you often visited Locksley, enough so to earn Guy’s personal enmity as he tried to court Marian. I dug into the circumstances around Marian’s family inheriting the Locksley estate, after the main Locksley line was all declared dead, including the daughter, Roberta, in a tragic fire accidentally started by some candles left burning. She was the right age, the right appearance, the right area. With the golden arrow, you knew the room I would be in—the room designated for any of the royal family visiting the castle. The first time we met, the way you moved even as you drew your bow, you had an elegance that could only be from someone of noble birth.”

“You figured out who I was based offthatfirst meeting?”

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