Page 37 of Kings of Sherwood

“Well, you know. It’s just...” I can’t look at her. “I’ve always wanted to...you know. In here.”

“Library sex?”

I shrug helplessly. “I know. It’s stupid.”

“Not stupid.” She’s absolutely beaming. “It sounds fun.”

“Yeah?” I look up. Inch closer. Thread my fingers through hers when she picks up my hand.

“Absolutely.” She tugs at my hand, pulls us together, and instinct wins out as I sweep into her for a kiss. She hooks her fingers in my belt loops, pressing us together, hot and urgent, and as I bend down to tease her lower lip with my teeth I can’t help but feel like I might be having the best night of the four of us after all.

Chapter Eight

Rob

The rain’s coming down like it hates us. Every step I take squelches in ankle-deep muck, and the hood of my jacket is stuck to the back of my neck—water-resistant, my ass.

“Ah, the great outdoors,” I call, to no one in particular.

Behind me, Scarlet grumbles something I can’t quite catch.

“What do you mean,this isn’t your idea of a good time?” I call back. “I’m having a blast.”

He catches up to me with two huffing steps. “Shut,” he says, water dripping from the tip of his nose, “thefuckup.”

I just smile and clap him on the shoulder. “Attaboy.”

“Would you two move your asses?” roars LJ from a few paces away, flipping up his night-vision googles.

“Coming,” I yell back.

We’ve already done two full sweeps of the property, and I can feel it in my shoulders. The kind of dull ache that only creeps in when the adrenaline wears off and the cold sets in. I shift the crossbow, adjusting for the weight that is as reassuring as it is a drag—custom grip, camo tape, the sight I dialed in perfectly back when I had time for shit like that. Will’s got the recurve bow, and LJ’s got...I don’t know what, but the man can turn into a bear, so I ain’t worried.

We’re not just stomping around aimlessly, either. Every twenty feet or so, we pass a marker—trees with notches cut into them, or little motion sensors wired up high, blinking a soft red if you know where to look. The perimeter’s rigged tight: tripwires with flashbangs, high-frequency emitters to scrambleanyone who gets too close, and silent alerts pinging straight to our phones. I’ve got three burners in various pockets just in case one dies in the wet.

I trudge forward, whistling a little. The sky above the canopy is pitch-black now—not twilight, but real, middle-of-the-night black. Every now and then, I see one of our own boot prints washed half away in the mud, so we’ve been here at least long enough to start overlapping ourselves. Time’s gotten slippery, and I’m reacting to the uncertainty of it all by being a happy-go-lucky jackass, because it’s the only way I know how.

Will grumbles again, something about how no one in their right mind would be hunting in this kind of weather.

“I don’t disagree,” I call back. “But if we were dealing with folks in their right minds, we wouldn’t have to patrol at all.”

Finally, we catch up to LJ, who looks impassive as always, even under pelting rain. “You both caught your breath?” he says.

“Yes,” I say, just as Scarlet says “no.” LJ grunts and keeps walking anyway.

“Not all of us are in fighting form,” Will grouses, slogging into the leaves and underbrush.

LJ snorts. “Please. Like you don’t do push-ups in front of the mirror every morning.”

“Speaking of fighting,” I say, to cut the tension. “Howdidthat go? You teach her anything useful today?”

LJ gives a half-committal sound, and then I remember how he’d turned up that afternoon—and how Maren had looked whensheturned up.

“Hang on.” I grab his elbow. “What did youdoto her, my friend?”

Will turns around, alarm in his eyes even under his hood.

LJ shrugs. “Nothing.”

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