Page 61 of The Wicked Prince

John climbed into his saddle. “No. All this for my wife.”

* * *

There was a massive, horrible, uncomfortable truth Robin could not deny.

She’d gotten soft.

Spoiled.

She blamed John.

Robin found she could not keep up with her men as easily as she used to. She tired a little faster, slept longer, ate more to feel full—well, she tried; they didn’t have the rations or the time to hunt properly if they wanted to stay ahead of whatever forces John might send after her.

Robin told her men John wasn’t going to send anyone after her.

“You are what I desire!”

Maybe.

As they traveled, Will and Alan pestered her for all the details about what had happened over the last year. Robin mostly shrugged and said there wasn’t much to tell. John married her for political reasons and left her alone. Anything he might have said to them or any rumors were just him trying to get under their skin. Robin told them she spent her days trying to keep herself sharp, dedicating quite a bit of time to refining her quarterstaff skills—which she showed off to Little Jon, who still proved to be the master—and doing what she could to help people where she could.

When Little Jon narrowed his eyes at her and asked her how she was able to work around Prince John, she shrugged and said her taking on some responsibility meant he had less. Her men accepted that answer, buying into the implication that it was because John was lazy.

That night, as Robin struggled to sleep on the cold ground, rubbing her hand over her left calf, she refused to feel guilty about it. She failed.

She woke up with bags under her eyes and a headache from her tight braid. She refused to look at her left hand.

Robin instead focused on being back with her family that she’d desperately missed for so long. She had them regale her with all the stories of their rescue attempts. She’d demanded Alan explain why he thought dressing as a woman would work a third time when it didn’t the first two. Will told her how the Sheriff had caught him hanging upside down, tangled up in a tapestry as he’d tried to sneak up to Robin’s floor. Little Jon watched her, a knowing look in his eyes that Robin didn’t like.

One night, when Robin was on watch, Little Jon took a seat beside her at the fire.

They were close, only a week and a half out from their destination and where they promised Robin would have her freedom again.

“What really happened, Robin?” Little Jon whispered after Will and Alan were out cold.

Robin wrapped her arms around her knees and rested her chin on them. “I really wish I knew.”

“I think ye know. I just think ye don’t want to.”

It was always the Johns who knew her best.

“What happened doesn’t matter anymore. John was just playing the long game, and I fell for it like I did all his other traps. Thankfully, you came and got me before it was too late.”

“What was the long game?”

“The same as the others. All he ever wanted was to have in his full possession the criminal causing him grief. The first part was finding me. The second was catching me. The third was binding me. The last was having me give in.” Robin tightened her grip. “He almost had me. I almost made a huge mistake.”

“When one of us mentions him, ye don’t have the look of someone who was just rescued.” Little Jon eyed her. “Ye look like ye did when I first found ye. Like ye’re running away.”

A chill ran down her spine. “Isn’t that similar enough?”

“There are right reasons to run from something. There are also wrong reasons. I love ye, Robin. We all do. Ye’re our family. And no matter what, we’ll be with ye if ye’re running for the right reasons or the wrong, but ye should at least know.”

“You don’t have to keep running. Not anymore.”

Robin whispered, “He gave me a portrait of me and my parents for my birthday.”

Little Jon blinked. “Didn’t it all burn up in the fire?”

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