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"I did not sleep much."

"I noticed."

“I’ve been thinking about what you said. About the two reasons." She turned the cup a quarter around in her hands. "Guy, I have spent my whole adult life believing that belonging to somebody and being owned by them were the same transaction. And I had excellent evidence. My father belonged to this kingdom. He gave it everything he had, and it killed him. The Crown owned my house, so it took the house. It owned the law, so it wrote a trial. Every single thing I’ve ever seen called loyalty in this country has turned out to be a leash with a prettier name."

A soft sigh escaped me. “I know."

"So I made myself into something nobody could take anything from. No house, no name, no title, nothing on me worth seizing but a brass compass and a bow." She looked up. "And it worked. It worked beautifully for many years, and I was proud of it. I was also so lonely I’m now building nests in my sleep."

I didn’t say anything, because she hadn’t finished, and because there was nothing I could have added that would not have been in the way.

"I never meant to trust an Alpha. I had a list of reasons as long as the King's Road." Her mouth went crooked. "Then one came into my forest alone in the dark to tell me my father was innocent,and put himself in front of a knife for me. Stood in a clearing in front of forty of his own men and let them all believe something humiliating about him rather than say my name."

"Robin…”

"I'm not finished." She set the cup down. "You have changed what I think love is allowed to look like. I didn’t know it could come without a price attached. I didn’t know a person could want me and not want anything from me." She took a breath. "I want you to claim me."

For a moment I forgot the mechanics of breathing. "Robin."

"Before you start lecturing me about my heat, I know exactly what I am saying."

"I wasn't going to lecture you."

"You were thinking about it."

I gave her a soft smile, lifting her chin and meeting her eyes. “Possibly."

She took my hand and held it. "I have spent three years running from you. I don't want to run anymore."

I made myself ask it properly, because she deserved to be asked properly. "Are you certain?"

She nodded. “Yes."

"Because this is not a thing either of us can undo. Not by agreement, not by distance, and not by time."

She took a deep breath. “I know."

"Because I’ll never ask you to stop being the Ghost of Sherwood. Not for my office, not for my safety, not for anything. If you are waiting for the day I ask you to hang up the bow and keep a quiet house, it is not coming."

Her eyes went soft at that, which was not the reaction I expected.

"Good," she said. "Because I was not planning to."

I let out a breath I had evidently been holding since the previous night. "Then yes, Robin. A thousand times yes."

What I did next, I had not planned, which is unusual for me.

I got down off the bench and onto one knee in front of her, and I did it slowly because of the stitches, and I made a sound doing it that rather ruined the effect.

She stared at me. "What are you doing?"

"Be quiet for a moment."

"Guy, you're bleeding into your own bandage, get up."

"Robin of Locksley…” I took her hand. "Be quiet."

She went quiet, and her eyes went very wide, and I knelt there on a cold floor in a dead man's cabin and said the only vows I actually had to give.