Page 57 of The Wicked Prince

Before she was in too deep. Before she couldn’t stop.

She couldn’t give her heart to him. If she did, she’d never leave this castle, never see her men again, never be Robin Hood again. She’d just be his wife, the princess, Roberta of Locksley.

And—

And—

And she couldn’t remember why that would be so terrible a fate for a moment.

Which was exactly why she couldn’t let him in. Why she had to shove him away and put back all the distance they’d crossed over the past months.

Robin sat on her bed and reached down and rubbed her bad leg even though it didn’t ache.

She couldn’t let herself love him. She couldn’t.

Because then it would all have been for nothing. All the years she’d worked as Robin Hood to save people from his crippling taxes and iron fist would have been a waste.

Because if John wasn’t what all the rumors claimed he was, a monster from birth, then that meant he hadn’t—

“Psst!”

Robin looked up.

“Hey, princess, sorry it took so long. Still ready for that rescue?”

When she was presented with the chance to run away, Robin had never turned it down. Not since the day she stopped being Roberta and became Robin. She’d sworn never to go back.

* * *

“I’ll kill them. I’m going to strangle them when we find them! They are not taking her from me again!”

John could hear Marian rail at Guy behind him. But it might as well have been on the other side of the country.

Or wherever Robin was.

Because she wasn’t there. She was gone.

John sat on the edge of Robin’s bed, staring at the open window and the rope swinging in the air outside. The wardrobe was open, the dress Robin had been in earlier discarded on the ground, and the wool tunic and trousers he’d given her for the training grounds gone. Otherwise, the room was exactly as it always was.

That was how John knew she hadn’t been kidnapped.

Guy was promising he was going to get the Sheriff and they were going to find Robin and the Merry Men, and John wanted to throw something at him. Guy’s words were exactly the same empty promises he couldn’t meet years ago before John had ever laid eyes on the outlaw.

Guy couldn’t find or catch Robin if she fell out of a tree and broke her leg right in front of him.

“Oh, you don’t even know where to look!” Marian huffed. “They were so desperate when they came to me for a legal solution to annul the marriage but since they clearly never found one, they must have just decided to go for her and figure it out later. And now they could be taking her anywhere!”

“They’ve never been far from Ferren before,” Guy said. “They’ve never left Astren before.”

“They’ve never been trying to make off with Prince John’s wife before!”

“Get out.”

Marian and Guy turned to John. He tightened his grip on the dress he’d picked up off the floor. He yelled, “Get out!”

Guy took Marian’s arm and rushed her out of the room, shutting the door behind them, leaving John alone.

John rose from the bed, flinging the dress to the ground as he started pacing the room. Robin was gone.

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