Clenching her jaw, she dug her fingers into the back of his shirt. “Make a wish,” she stood on tiptoe and hissed into Robin’s ear.
Robin merely jerked his head. Maybe he was telling her no. Maybe he was shrugging her off. Or maybe he was simply too zoned into the man in front of him to give her a verbal response, but the head shake was all she got.
The guard’s eyes jerked to hers, and even in the dim lighting she could read the question in his eyes, the curiosity of what she’d meant.
“You will come with me.” The guard’s voice sounded like he’d crunched on glass throughout the evening. He flicked his fingers at them, gesturing for them to come.
There was no room for an actual sword fight in there, but the way he stood, and how he’d moved his fingers toward his belt let Nixie know there was definitely a weapon on him.
Did they have guns here?
Robin snorted. “Funny that you’d assume I’d willingly go to you, knight.”
The guard lifted a brow. “No fear then? One of those, eh? I wondered why my King had me post up here tonight, I now see he suspected one of you Merry Men might attempt something.”
Merry Men? The guard thought Robin was just a Merry Man? Wanting to laugh with relief, even as she still wanted to pee her pants (the man might not be holding a gun at them, but there was no doubt that his intentions were anything but honorable right now) she breathed a sigh of relief.
“Way I see it, son of a whore,” the man danced his fingers across a hilt Nixie hadn’t seen before. “Your options are verra limited.”
Holy crap, the blade might not be a sword, but it was still plenty big. Heart pounding harder than before, she kept waiting for Robin to make his wish. Yes, it was his final wish, and yes, he’d lose any and all chance of doing whatever it was he needed to do with Crispin, but it was better to live and fight another day than die in here where no one knew where they were at and there’d be no backup to be had.
Robin’s chuckle made her skin burn even as she wanted to groan. Now, was so not the time to play “whose is longer”.
“That’s where you’re wrong, knight. I’ve got two options as I see it.”
Thank God. He was going to make his wish after all. Not that she wanted to leave him. Not yet. But, she’d rather see him alive and happy someday, then to visit a gravestone.
“One. I could subdue you and leave you here to be found...” he shrugged, “who can say when.”
The sarcastic smile on the guard’s face never wavered and Nixie began to get a terrible feeling through the pit of her stomach.
“Or two. I could kill you.”
Kill! Kill! Was he insane? He couldn’t kill somebody here, not now. They needed to get away, they needed to go. There was no time to subdue the guard either.
“Make your wish, Ro—” Realizing the name she’d been about to say, she coughed and cleared her throat. “Charming.”
“Marian,” Robin snapped at her and instantly she wanted to wish the words back, wanted to fix it so that it’d never happened. But the magic wasn’t hers to wield.
The guard’s eyes narrowed to thin slits and a light of greed and avarice glittered in their depths. “Robin?” He snarled. “As in Hood? Bloody hell.” His smile grew broad and full of malic. Then he yanked on the large five-inch buck knife in his belt and scratched his jaw with the sharp tip. “Five thousand pound reward. Dead or alive, mate. And I choose dead.”
“Dammit all to blue blazes, woman,” Robin snapped, and then it was all a blur.
Nixie could barely track Robin’s movements. One second she was sure they were dead to rights, the guard lifted that enormous freaking knife and she knew, knew it was going to slam down onto Robin’s skull, but it was the guard and not Robin who suddenly stopped, eyes going wide and clutching at the hilt of a blade poking out of the hollow of his throat.
He grunted twice, and then dropped to the paved stone with a heavy thud. Robin bent over and withdrew the small knife, wiped it down on the guard’s shirt, and then sheathed it once more.
“C’mon,” Robin yanked on her hand, twisting them about, “Now we run even faster.”
“You killed him,” she muttered senselessly. A little bit in shock, but not as terrified as she maybe should have been. She’d not expected him to kill the man, but then again, their options had been limited.
“Yes.” He never paused his running as they moved through the maze of halls. Thankfully there were no more guards to surprise them.
As they ran Nixie thought about Robin’s options. About what he could have done differently. He could have wished them out of there, but then Crispin… Crispin would have likely been lost to him forever.