Page 144 of Queen of Sherwood

I snarled, nostrils flared like a caught animal. I wouldn’t cry through this torture—I was no longer that person.

Then flashes of memory came back to me in fragments: Peter Fisher, trying for the same thing, pulling at me and demanding of me things he didn’t deserve; the cries of Enid in those woods near the carriage, as the rest of the young women were forced to listen to her attack in a drug-addled daze; the cool chain of my shackles wrapping around Red’s neck, who had only ever wanted cruelty; the purple-faced bulge to his cheeks as I suffocated the life out of him; a guard choking me with my shackles minutes later, and the lynch-mark that remained tattooed on the skin of my neck—a symbol of what these wretched fiends had tried to do to me.

It was the story of every woman in this damned realm. I was the embodiment of the suffering, and now I faced it full-on in the dark, salacious, sadistic eyes of my nemesis.

This time, I had no human skull to crash against Peter Fisher’s face and lodge into his eye socket. Had no manacle to wrap around Red’s throat. No one to shove a man off me and protect my modesty and dignity.

I had no recourse . . . at all.

I was truly helpless.

And that sinking feeling was worse than death itself, because it opened a cavernous wound inside me that siphoned all the spitting rage and snarling anger, and turned it into pity, victimization, and fear.

Unbridled terror, as Sheriff George freed himself from his trousers and fisted his despicable excuse for a cock. He curved his split lips and licked my face again, and I recoiled.

A heavy sigh came from behind him.

Boots rumbled the soil, even as the mud and grass bit into my flesh like tiny daggers.

“I think I’ve seen quite enough.” Sir Guy of Gisborne’s raspy voice. “I’m disappointed, George.”

Guy was suddenly standing next to George, staring down at me as the Sheriff defiled my body.

George shot a look over his shoulder, brow creasing with wrinkles. “What are you babbling about, eh?”

“I suppose I should be disappointed in myself.” Guy’s eyes softened, brow arching with something I’d never seen before in him.

It looked like remorse.

“I thought I could fix you.”

George growled. “What—”

Guy’s thin blade plunged through the side of George’s neck, jutting out the other side like a spit pig over a fire.

For a moment, George simply looked confused. Then the shock of impending death sucked all the pallor from his cheeks. Guy had drawn his blade and struck so swiftly, no one reacted for three heartbeats.

George’s eyes bulged. A gurgling bubbled from his mouth, and a waterfall of warm, sticky blood spilled down his neck and mouth onto my face and chest.

I inhaled sharply, squeezing my eyes shut as the overbearing weight of Sheriff George sunk into me.

When I opened my eyes, Sir Guy withdrew his blade just as fast, wiping the red on his pants.

“F-Fuck!” a stammering guard exclaimed.

Guy backpedaled, sword at the ready at his side, point toward the ground.

Sheriff George had become dead weight on top of me. I struggled to breathe, and my mind spun in shock. Something like hope careened through me in ribbons.

With a grunt, I heaved George partway off me.

The three guards jumped to their feet, fumbling with their weapons.

“Well?” Guy said matter-of-factly. “Have at thee.”

He spun at one before the guard could swoop his sword off the ground. The man’s fingers went flying and he screamed.

The two other guards attacked Guy and he darted and bobbed around their attacks.

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