Page 40 of Kings of Sherwood

“Yes,” Nick sputters. “I mean...no. I knew it was real. Everyone knows. That guy Lackland’s loaded, and—”

My blood goes cold.

So much for relief.

“Say that again,” I interrupt, keeping my voice as even as I can. “Who’s loaded?”

“That...Lackland. John Lackland, I think?” Nick looks from Will to me with a desperate hope, like maybe he’s said the magic word.

And in a way, I guess he has.

Because that changes things a good fucking deal.

I glance at LJ. His mouth is a hard line. Will mutters something under his breath that sounds a lot likemotherfucker.

So it’s not just a bounty. It’s his bounty.

Maren’s shitstain of an uncle.

Without warning, Will draws back and smacks the kid across the face—hard.

“Hey!” I cry, and lunge for him. “For fuck’s sake, Scarlet. He’s a kid. Chill the hell out.”

Will glowers. Gives his head a little shake. “Sorry,” he mutters.

“You better be,” I spit back. “Give me your cuffs.”

He grumbles—“how’d you know I have cuffs”—but digs into his pocket. Nick must see the change on my face, because heflinches and tries to shrink back into the mud. “Are you—are you gonna kill me?”

Scarlet hands me the plastic ties, and as I thread them around the kid’s bony wrists, zipping them just tight enough that he can’t escape, I get a really good look at him—skinny, soaked, shaking like a goddamn leaf.

I recognize the look. Desperate. Scared shitless. Still young enough to make stupid, stupid decisions.

The kind of look I’d see in the mirror when I was his age.

“No,” I say, standing up, and I mean it. “But we sure as hell aren’t letting you leave, either.”

Chapter Nine

Maren

One minute I’m lounging on the library couch, half-wrapped in a throw blanket and half-asleep with my head on Tuck’s shoulder and the fire crackling distantly in the background at I-don’t-know-how-late o’clock.

The next minute—

Bang.

The door slams open and three dripping-wet, mud-crusted, panting men burst through, all talking at once.

No, not three—four.

“What the hell?” I sit bolt upright, now fully awake and all afterglow extinguished, and let out a slight yelp when I realize there’s a stranger with them. “Who’s—”

I don’t finish my thought, as a shirtless Tuck hastily secures the blanket very firmly around my top, his cheeks brilliantly pink.

“Um, hey, guys,” he says. “Did you—”

I don’t let him finish. “Are you hurt?”

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