Page 40 of The Wicked Prince

John gave her a pointed look. “Are you planning another reckless ride out into the city with no proper protection?”

He was tempting her to.

“No, but you’re avoiding the question. Whymyguards? I could use a sparring partner that will give me a challenge.”

John leaned on his own hand, staring Robin down. “Because I’m not going to let anyone leer at or get a handful of my wife.”

“Leer?” Robin sputtered, trying not to feel the strange shiver that went down her spine at the words ‘my wife.’ “Those men barely pay attention to me at all. You think they’d try to ‘get a handful’ of me? I’m surprised they even notice enough to follow me when I leave a room.”

“Good. They know their place.”

Robin rolled her eyes. “This. This is why you’re spoiled. So it’s fine for you to watch me train and put your hands on me but no one else?”

“I’m your husband.”

Robin dug her fingers into the dirt and ignored the strange way her heart twitched at his words as he continued, “It’s different.”

John shifted back, and it was only then Robin realized how little distance there had been between them. He shifted his shoulders and said, “Besides, if I ever looked at you the way some of those men look at any beautiful woman, much less touch you any way you didn’t want me to, you’d kill me.”

Robin bit her tongue so hard she tasted blood, pushing down the strange girl-like words that threatened to spill out.‘You think I’m beautiful?’She’d been humiliating herself enough lately around John, she didn’t need to add any more to it. She was Robin Hood, the most wanted criminal in the country, not some little girl tongue-tied around a handsome boy.

John wasn’t a handsome boy.

He was a handsome man though.

Especially as they sat on the ground side by side, still flushed from sparring and the cold, his hair in complete disarray, and his brown eyes burning hotter than any fire she could wish for in such a chill.

He said, “And I rather like being alive, as you know—that’s why you’re here, after all.”

“Yes, because Richard threatened to have you go to the frontlines so he could return to deal with me.” Robin pushed past the strange feelings and returned to her original goal, figuring out why he acted the way he did. “What I don’t understand is why he went to the frontlines in the first place. He’s the king and you’re…”

“The spare, yes, I’m aware.” John rolled his eyes. He gestured to all of him. “But you’ve met me. You’re the one who dragged me out here claiming I’m such an embarrassment to men because I’m so weak I was bested by you in a matter of seconds. I’m obviously the wrong choice to send to war if you want to win. Soldiers don’t take orders from cowards.”

Robin stayed silent. She had no evidence she could present to disprove it. It was the one trait she had decided not to address at all.

John drew a knee up to his chest and leaned his arm on it. “Richard runs to battle. I run from it. Going anywhere near the border would be a death sentence for me. It’s far too dangerous, and I am far too incapable and terrified. I would never go anywhere near it, not willingly, not for anything. I’m not like you, Robin.”

He then looked over at her, and there was something strange in his eyes. Almost admiration, something like security, and a little bit of longing.

“Heroes like you die young and painfully. Cowards like me live to see another day.”

“You can’t spend your life running from everything that can hurt you.” Robin swallowed, unable to even so much as twitch a finger under the weight of his gaze. “Besides, not everything can be run from. It’ll always catch you.”

“I suppose I should believe you. I caught you after all.”

There was a severity to his words that Robin couldn’t quite comprehend, like there was some meaning in it she should grasp, but it just slid through her hands like water.

Chapter16

John had known this would happen eventually. He was a little surprised it had taken this long though. They truly were incompetent without Robin.

All the stories ever focused on was her skill with a bow. They always brushed over what made her truly extraordinary, her brilliant mind that had come up with every scheme she’d gotten away with, at least until she’d come up against him.

Her men clearly weren’t the brains of their operation.

John stared down at the man in the cell in front of him, what was his name again? Whit Red? Wes Burgundy?

Robin didn’t talk about them in front of him. He didn’t bring them up because he didn’t want to remind her that he was responsible for the fact that she was separated from her companions. Robin also didn’t know one of those companions had been caught and thrown into the dungeons. She currently thought he was in a meeting with some advisor about some important report that he’d made up.

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