Page 59 of The Wicked Prince

So he should let her go. Let her men take her wherever they wanted. Enact whatever scheme they had to free her from him fully.

John looked back at the dresser.

But… Why had she taken the ring?

Chapter24

The second Will had popped up over the windowsill with a rope in hand, throwing it into her room, Robin hadn’t wasted a second.

She’d pulled Will into the room, changed into trousers and a tunic, and thrown off the arrow necklace. When she looked at her hand, at the ring that had been on it for so long now, she didn’t take it off. Instead, she just grabbed the bow and quiver, trying not to remember the smirk and the light in John’s eyes when he’d watched her pick it up. She couldn’t go without a weapon.

Although she didn’t think as to what she was going to need protecting from.

Robin wasn’t entirely sure what happened after she secured the rope and went out the window after Will.

It was like she blinked and she was on a horse, galloping away from Lathe. She looked back only once at the castle as the sun started setting. Then Little Jon called out her name and she turned back around and followed them into the forest. They rode all night and stopped only when dawn started to break and their horses could go no farther.

Little Jon grabbed her and swung her off her horse, burying her in a bear hug that brought tears to her eyes. She was ten again, being found after running and she was going to run for the rest of her life. Then Alan and Will were joining in, and Robin was biting her tongue and shaking, trying not to cry.

She wasn’t supposed to cry. Not in front of her men. She had to be strong enough to keep up. The one with the plan, calling the shots.

So she didn’t. Robin took a deep, shuddering breath as she stepped out of Little Jon’s grip and pulled Alan into a hug and then Will. She did not cry.

She was leaving that behind in Lathe, that weak, sniveling mess of a creature Prince John had turned her into.

“Oh, Robin, it is good to see ye well!” Little Jon said, clapping a strong hand on her back. “Ye wouldn’t believe how worried we’ve been about ye.”

“You should hear the stories everyone’s been telling about you!” Alan said. “Everything from Prince John dragging you to some secret courtyard and beating you every morning to you curling up on his lap like some declawed cat every night! Sometimes people were telling both at the same time.”

Well… they were half-right. And apparently her handmaids were massive gossips.

“Of course it suited Prince Parasite to have people believe that,” Will said, scowling. “Running around telling people all sorts of lies about you.”

“Like what?” This was the first she’d heard of John saying anything about her. “He always told people to stop gossiping about me.”

Will scoffed. “Did he? Because he told me lies right to my face. Claiming he put his hands on you—and worse that you wanted him to! Saw right through it, I did, obviously, but the fact that he dared to put your name in his mouth like that made me want to end him right there.”

Robin hoped they couldn’t see how bright red her face was in the shadows of the trees. Of course John would crow and make insinuations about her letting him help her with her bad leg. Wait…

“To your face? When was this?” Robin turned on her feet. “Have you all tried to rescue me before and been caught?”

Little Jon looked up at the trees as the birds sang in the early dawn light. Will blanched while Alan winced and held his hand out, tilting it from side to side. “Eh… A handful of times.”

“And you escaped every time? And didn’t get me? I was in the castle every day. How did I not know this?”

“Not so much escaped every time, but, uh, released,” Little Jon said.

“I think he liked it,” Alan said. “Like some sick little game. Catch, release, catch, release, but we just needed one success, and here we are!”

They’d been coming for her for months and John had known. He’d hidden it from her. Of course he had. He’d been playing her for a fool. Always a game with him. Nothing he said was true or genuine.

At least she’d regained her senses before it had been too late.

“Well, thankfully we’re all done playing his games. We’re making our own now,” Robin said. She gestured ahead. “We should keep moving.”

But… he’d said he would go back on their pardon if they tried. That he would kill them. But instead he’d let them go.

No. She couldn’t let herself go down that road. Not if she was going to keep running down hers.

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