Page 67 of The Wicked Prince

“You’re not staying, John.” Richard’s voice was softer but solid. “I will be pardoning Robin no matter what. It’s the fact you offered it at all that matters to me. Besides… despite what you might think, I have kept up to date on what you’ve been doing in Lathe, and not just the things I disapprove of that I’ve already covered. I kept up when you married Robin and followed the good the two of you have been doing. Now, I’m not revoking that annulment if she wants to sign it, but at the very least, I’d rather have you in Lathe continuing that work than out here.”

John’s breath caught in his throat, and his legs buckled. He barely stopped himself from hitting the ground by grabbing hold of the nearest chair. Then he looked up and narrowed his eyes. If it wasn’t treason, he’d kill Richard. “That was a test?”

Richard had a wry grin. “Anyone can ride off after a runaway wife. I wanted to know what you were willing to lose for even just the chance to keep her.”

John got his legs back under him and scoffed. “I can’t believe everyone thinks I’m the evil, scheming monster and you’re the pure-hearted, noble hero.”

“Public perception is powerful.” Richard shrugged and then gestured to the tent flap. “Now, go on. Go catch your criminal one last time.”

John didn’t need to be told twice. He rushed out of the tent, wincing immediately at the blinding light bouncing off worthless sand dunes. He had a chance at least. He had something worth fighting for.

And that was when he saw her, also hurrying out of the tent she’d been in, her men right on her heels. Two of them were speaking over each other to the degree that it was impossible to decipher what they were saying.

John didn’t care. All he saw was Robin.

She turned around and saw him, and she froze in her tracks as she looked at him anew. Everything he’d been drowning in when he first arrived in the camp came flooding back at the sight of her.

Chapter27

John supposed part of what he felt might also be that he was still burning from Richard’s deception, but it was mostly the fire that had caused him to get up and follow her from Lathe to the desert in the first place that ruled him now.

He meant it. He wasn’t going to just let the best thing that he had ever known run away without a fight.

“You!” John said, pointing at her as he stormed toward her. “You do not get to just climb out a window and run away! I will not let you become a coward. If you’re going to leave me, you’re going to do it to my face!”

But Robin barely seemed to hear him as he came up to her. She whispered, “You came. Here. To the desert.”

“Obviously. I’m not an idiot, and you always underestimate how well I know you. Of course you’d come here to the one place on the continent I swore I would never go in order to get away from me!”

“But you’re here,” Robin whispered, moving even closer. “So I was wrong.”

“You’ve been wrong about a lot of things, especially when it comes to me.” John crossed his arms. He tried to hold onto the anger that had come rushing back, but it was slowly slipping away now that he was looking at her wide eyes and slightly parted lips. He had to dig his nails into his skin to stop himself from grabbing her and crushing her to himself.

She’d come out of Richard’s tent. He was too late. She’d signed the papers.

She wasn’t his wife anymore.

“Yes…” Robin breathed. “I’ve had it all wrong.”

John blinked at her. That… hadn’t been what he’d expected.

“You—You have?”

“Robin, come on, don’t waste your breath on him!” Will called out.

John refused to pull his eyes away from Robin now that they’d been laid on her. She also did not look away from him, the awe in her eyes causing him to shift his weight.

Robin asked, “What was your plan? When you got here, what were you going to do?”

“I… I wasn’t entirely sure. I just knew I had to do something. You were running away with the wrong idea, and I couldn’t just let you go without a fight.”

“And if I asked you to let me go, what would you do?”

John closed his eyes.

Could he?

He’d told Richard he would, but actually doing it was so much harder.

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