Seducing the Sheriff of Nottingham, page 1
part #5 of A Kinda Fairytale Series
Seducing the Sheriff of Nottingham
Cassandra Gannon
Text copyright © 2023 Cassandra Gannon
Cover Image copyright © 2023 Cassandra Gannon
All Rights Reserved
Published by Star Turtle Publishing
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Also by Cassandra Gannon
The Elemental Phases Series
Warrior from the Shadowland
Guardian of the Earth House
Exile in the Water Kingdom
Treasure of the Fire Kingdom
Queen of the Magnetland
Magic of the Wood House
A Kinda Fairytale Series
Wicked Ugly Bad
Beast in Shining Armor
The Kingpin of Camelot
Best Knight Ever
Seducing the Sheriff of Nottingham
Coming Soon: Happily Ever Witch
Other Books
Love in the Time of Zombies
Not Another Vampire Book
Vampire Charming
Cowboy from the Future
Once Upon a Caveman
Ghost Walk
If you enjoy Cassandra’s books, you may also enjoy books by her sister, Elizabeth Gannon.
The Consortium of Chaos series
Yesterday’s Heroes
The Son of Sun and Sand
The Guy Your Friends Warned You About
Electrical Hazard
The Only Fish in the Sea
Not Currently Evil
The Mad Scientist’s Guide to Dating
Broke and Famous
Formerly the Next Big Thing
Other books
The Snow Queen
Travels with a Fairytale Monster
Everyone Hates Fairytale Pirates
Captive of a Fairytale Barbarian
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Epilogue
Author’s Note
I have loved to the point of madness;
that which is called madness,
that which to me,
is the only sensible way to love.
Françoise Sagan
Prologue
How It Happened the First Time…
Robin Hood hadn’t come to save her.
Maybe that wouldn’t matter to Maid Marion, though.
Maybe Hood had some passable explanation for why he’d left her in the church. Maybe Marion would forgive him for being such an unmitigated asshole. Maybe she’d vanish into Sherwood Forest, with her arrow-shooting True Love, and he’d never see her again.
The Sheriff of Nottingham muttered a resigned curse, resting his forehead against the window. He would die if he couldn’t see Marion again.
Nicholas was obsessed with the woman. Literally obsessed, in the terrorizing-her-hairdresser-to-learn-what-kind-of shampoo-she-used sense of the word. It was a compulsion that he’d long since given up trying to control. Every moment of the day, Nicholas was obsessing over Marion Huntingdon. Where she was going. What she was thinking. Who she was smiling at. How she was feeling. When he might see her again. She consumed him.
And there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.
In the distance, he could see the lights of Marion’s home. It seemed impossibly far away. Unreachable and warm. He stared at the illuminated estate, always on the outside looking in.
Doubts and “what ifs?” swirled through Nicholas’ mind. He should have closed the drawer to the nightstand better. If he had, she’d still be safely tucked into his bed. Or even if he’d been able to concoct an ingenious lie to somehow explain away the blatantly obvious. But Nicholas had never been good with words. Everything always came out wrong. And he hadn’t wanted to lie. Not to Marion. She’d looked up at him, with huge brown eyes, and he’d told her the truth.
So, of course, she’d run away. Why in the world would she stay?
Nicholas wasn’t even really real.
He was a gargoyle, carved from stone and enspelled to life. The vast majority of his body was flesh and human-shaped. If you shot a gargoyle, he would bleed and die. They could eat and think and have sex. But, it was impossible to miss that gargoyles’ ancestors had been the granite statues that protected the roof of the castle. Thanks to Nottingham’s ancient, proprietary magic, gargoyles now talked and breathed, like other beings.
But were they truly alive?
That was a question Nottingham was forever trying to answer. Had they created a race of vigilant warriors, steadfast and solid in their duty? Or were the gargoyles just empty stone carvings moving around like programed robots? Most people went with the latter. Gargoyles were nothing but burly vessels created to guard the palace.
Passionless, purposeless, and predictable. Those were the words usually used to describe them.
Although today, Nicholas had proved that bigoted stereotype wrong, once and for all. Things hadn’t gone to plan, but he’d still ended up on top. He’d outmaneuvered all the humans in the land and he’d won. …For all the good it did him.
Nicholas pinched the bridge of his nose. Marion was furious at him. She had a right to be. And she was heartbroken over Hood. God only knew why. The man was useless. Even worse, Nicholas had ruined Marion’s pristine reputation. A Maid’s reputation was everything in Nottingham. That had to be traumatizing for her. And then there was everything that came after…
He glanced over at the nightstand again, where his lamp had one stood. Now shards of it were all over the floor.
Broken.
Today had changed everything. Broken the uneasy status quo between him and Marion and Hood. Nothing could ever change it back to the way it was. There was no rewinding the clock. No redoing it all.
Even if you could redo it… would you really want to?
Nicholas’ jaw tightened. The mental voice of his worst-self sometimes flitted through his brain, guiding him on terrible, selfish paths. His reverse conscience. On his best days, he could ignore the dark drives that it urged him to follow. This was not one of his best days.
Nothing could redo what happened. But, if you were Nick Greystone, Sheriff of Nottingham, that indisputable fact was actually… good news.
Wasn’t it?
Analyzing it dispassionately, he realized yes. It was very good news. His actions today were set in stone. Hood and Marion’s relationship was broken. Irrevocably. Even if that son of a bitch wanted her back, it could never be what it was before.
Marion already sensed the permanency of their rift. Until now, she’d been endlessly loyal to her beloved outlaw, defending his every asinine move. But tonight she’d seemed willing to listen to the truth. She was angry at Hood. Enraged that he’d abandoned her. That was promising.
Nicholas’ paranoid worry that Marion would flee into the forest faded. She claimed she’d hate Nicholas forever-after, but she’d also said that she hated Hood more. That was promising, too. To her mind, Hood was the greatest villain in this mess.
Which was obviously true.
The Sheriff of Nottingham was the least popular man in the kingdom, so it was a welcomed change to have someone else getting some blame. Especially, since Nicholas only became Sheriff of Nottingham because of three interconnected quirks of fate:
There was a war.
He was a gargoyle.
He never missed an opportunity.
Nottingham was a small kingdom, always on the look out to grow in stature. King Richard had allied with King Uther of Camelot for the Looking Glass Campaigns, in far off Lyonesse. Richard didn’t care much about Camelot, but he did care about power. So did the rest of Nottingham’s elite. All the noble idiots happily went off to exert their will on the ‘inferior races,’ dragging the rest of the kingdom along with them.
It was a huge campaign. All the able-bodied, human men ru
Sadly for Richard, the idea of gargoyle soldiers was doomed to fail. The gargoyles’ stony features didn’t conform to the heroic ideals crooned about by popular bards. Their hulking bodies didn’t look so great in Nottingham’s flashy blue and gold uniforms. And, worst of all, they were all terrible bowmen.
Gargoyles’ fingers were often thick and large. That made archery difficult. They broke the bows. Nottingham’s soldiers were all expert archers. King Richard took pride in that, so the gargoyles’ inability to fire arrows was a huge disappointment for him. Then came the Battle of Kirklees, where the gargoyles were found at fault for Nottingham’s staggering losses. After that, they were all shipped back to the kingdom in disgrace.
Nicholas wasn’t surprised. Gargoyles were always convenient scapegoats at home, so why should war prove different? Still, he wasn’t exactly heartbroken over the loss of a military career. He’d never seen the point in trekking to some distant desert and he didn’t give a shit about expanding Richard’s power.
Gargoyles didn’t have a reason for existing, beyond serving Nottingham, though. Since that’s all he had to devote himself to, Nicholas had thrown himself into the role of sheriff with relentless determination.
In every way that mattered, Nicholas was in charge of the kingdom these days. Not even Gepetta could’ve predicted he’d rise so far. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much of a kingdom left to rule. Nicholas tried to hold things together, but it was another losing battle and even he knew it. Thanks to the Looking Glass Campaigns, Nottingham was broke.
And that asshole Robin Hood robbed what little gold the kingdom had left.
It made no sense to Nicholas. Hood could open an orphanage, if he wanted to help all those foundlings in the woods. Or work an actual fucking job and donate the money to the poor. Or do any one of a million other things to show off his compassion and selflessness. Instead, he was hunkered down in the forest, illegally shooting deer, and stealing from everyone who wandered by. What the hell went on inside the man’s head?
Hood should have married Marion long ago! Nicholas certainly would have, if he’d had the option. Instead, that moron devoted himself to defeating the Sheriff of Nottingham and left his True Love vulnerable.
And Nicholas had seized the opportunity.
Marion was his now. He’d kidnapped the woman and he was keeping her. Was that still possible? Yes. Of course it was. The rock-hard determination at his core wouldn’t allow for anything else.
Despite his smoldering obsession with a certain brunette, Nicholas was a logical man. Practical to the point of heartlessness. He relied on facts and strategy more than emotions. They were easier for him to understand. His straightforward mind began to analyze where he currently stood with Marion. It was mostly positive news, by any objective reading of the evidence.
Marion might not like what Nicholas had done, but the two of them were connected. They both knew it. He had years to persuade her to see things his way. Decades. He wasn’t going anywhere. Surely, Marion could get over Hood in decades. The man wasn’t that fucking special.
Nicholas had so much time to convince her. To fix things.
A knock sounded on his bedroom door.
Nicholas’ head whipped around. As the least popular man in Nottingham, visitors weren’t usually an issue for him. No one came to his room. No one except servants used the stairs to his tower. No one even talked to him, most days. Maybe it was one of the palace guards. His men were the only people who’d ever seek him out.
Nicholas was painfully introverted. As a boy, his mother had insisted he was just shy and he’d outgrow it, but he never had. There was an awkward distance between Nicholas and the rest of the world. He could feel it like a force field, all around him. Nicholas only felt like he fit with Marion and she rarely talked to him, these days. His social skills were abysmal. He dealt with his discomfort by encouraging people to leave him alone in the most efficient way possible: He was hostile towards everyone. Mass hangings and silent stares tended to keep chitchat to a minimum.
“Go away.” He snapped at the visitor, fully expecting his orders to be followed. His orders were always followed. The other gargoyles could deal with whatever the hell was happening.
Why was someone bothering him? He hated other people in his space, because the noise of them overwhelmed him. Sounds often felt oppressive, like he was drowning in them. His room was the one spot he knew he’d have silence. He wanted to be alone, brood about Marion and think of ways to…
Another knock, more insistent. A voice calling to him.
Startled, Nicholas opened the door.
…And his time ran out.
Chapter One
After two decades of reporting on Nottingham’s most infamous intrigues, tragic tales, and sordid scandals, the murderous man-eater Maid Marion is the worst criminal I’ve ever encountered. Nottingham is sleeping safer tonight, knowing that she’s locked up forever.
Alan A. Dale- “Nottingham’s Naughtiest News”
Ten Years Later
“Do you ever wish you could redo your life?”
Maid Marion jerked awake. Once upon a time, she’d been able to snooze straight through blaring alarms, but those days were long gone. A decade in The Wicked, Ugly and Bad Mental Health Treatment Center and Maximum Security Prison had turned her into a light sleeper.
“Marion? Psst! Did you hear me?”
Her idiot cellmate always waited until midnight to start jabbering. Every time Tansy so much as whispered, Marion was wide awake for the rest of the night.
“Oh for God’s sake…” She groaned, scrubbing a hand over her face. “Really, Tansy? Really?” In her old life, Marion had been sweet and refined. In her new life, here in the WUB Club, all of that had been burned away, allowing her to reach her full potential as a raging bitch. “I’m trying to sleep, you idiot.”
“This is important.” Tansy Hatta persisted, because the girl really had been sent to ruin Marion’s already ruined life. “Do you ever wish you could do everything again and make different choices?”
Marion tried ignoring her, but it did no good. Tansy was like a perky, blonde pitbull. She’d been born a Hatter, a rare and mysterious race capable of altering time. Tansy claimed she could change it, in fact. That meant she spent vast portions of her day rethinking the events that had landed her in the penitentiary. Who could blame her? If Tansy ever got out, and had the magic inhibitor removed from her ankle, it was theoretically possible she could rewind all her mistakes and do things differently.
Marion wasn’t sure the girl’s magic would actually work, of course. No one knew much about Hatters. There weren’t a lot of them and their ability to warp time frightened people, so they tended to keep to themselves. Some things that they obviously might have changed stayed terrible, though, so there must have been some limits to their ability to effect the past. Since Marion herself had no powers, she couldn’t explain it all. She certainly wasn’t bigoted against the Hatters, though. Marion wasn’t bigoted against anyone.
Except every single asshole in Nottingham.
“Are you awake up there? Hey Marion? Are you awake? I said…”
“I know what you said.” Marion snapped, trying to think of a downside to smothering Tansy with one of the uncomfortable pillows. Nothing came to mind. “You seriously don’t want to know what I’m wishing for right now.”
“No, I really mean it. Haven’t you ever wished you had a second chance to fix all your mistakes?”
Marion muttered a curse. From experience, she knew that Tansy wouldn’t stop talking until she got an answer. The two of them had been sharing the small space for over a year and the woman had been yammering nonstop for all four hundred and twelve days. She even talked when she brushed her teeth.
“What mistakes?” Marion asked sardonically. The prison never turned the overhead lights completely off, so she had a clear view of a roach skittering across the cracked ceiling and onto the wall. “I’m living the fucking dream.”
Tansy tended to get philosophical at night and, no matter the time of day, she took everything literally. “Me? I would definitely make different choices, if I knew where I’d end up. I’d have listened to Momma and stayed in school… Said no to all those dark spells… Not helped my loser boyfriend to levitate a grocery store into that vortex…”
