Baron’s arm shot across my body and his fingers closed around the hilt of the sword I’d been struggling to hold aloft. He tugged it free as though it weighed nothing. The sudden lack of strain made my arms drop uselessly to my sides, muscles trembling with the memory of the burden. Baron hefted the blade with effortless strength, the metal catching the light and flashing back at the sheriff. A raw, fierce power radiated from him, the same terrifyingly magnificent force I’d seen the moment before he’d punched Dorian.
He leveled the sword at the sheriff, each word dropping heavy and deliberate. “Don’t ever touch her again. If you do, I swear I’ll kill you.”
He didn’t shout; he didn’t need to. The promise in his voice carried more weight than any roar of rage could have. He meant every syllable.
“Why?” The sheriff’s voice cracked, disbelief twisting into something poisonous. “Why would you choose that sniveling girl over your own father?”
“I love her!”
The declaration tore out of Baron in a single, thunderous burst—raw, startling, and echoing through the clearing like a war cry. Everything stopped. Even the trees seemed to hold their breath. Father’s hands froze mid-pressure over Little John’s wound. Dale, now semi-conscious on the ground, went eerily still. Even the birds overhead fell silent.
Baron…loved me?
We were attracted to each other, of course, but we argued more often than we kissed.
When I imagined love, I assumed there would be misty eyes and moonlit walks around lakes, romantic poetry and bouquets of roses…that sort of thing. I thought back to moments Baron and I shared. He had hunted me through the forest and I had blacked his eye. He dove off a cliff to save me and had saved my life time and again. Then I asked him to run away with me… None of that was the type of love story I had heard about in quaint fairytales. But it was ours, as brutal, messy, and painfully real as it was. Baron loved me.
“No!” The sheriff’s scream ripped the air, jagged and feral. “You can’t!”
“I do.” Baron’s voice was iron. He stepped forward, sword unwavering. “You’ve lost. I choose her, and that is something you never did for me.”
The transformation in the sheriff’s face was monstrous. Disbelief folded into rage, the rage then twisting into something nearly inhuman. Something in him snapped, and darkness seemed to pour off him.
Then, with a hiss of metal on leather, he ripped his blade from its sheath and charged.
“Look out!” I shouted, needlessly.
Baron barely had time to raise his weapon into a proper defense position before the sheriff’s sword crashed into it. Sparks burst between them with such ferocity that Father flinched and I stumbled back a step. The sheriff snarled, teeth bared, trying to force his blade past Baron’s guard as if brute hatred alone could grind through steel.
Baron gave ground, just an inch, then another. They began circling like two predators, neither willing to back down. My heart hammered so hard it felt like it might bruise my ribs.
I needed a weapon. Something.Anything.
My bow and knives were gone, swallowed by the earlier chaos. My gaze swept the clearing in desperation and landed on Father’s discarded bow half-buried in leaves. I lunged for it, nearly tripping in my haste, and slung it into my grip. But when I reached back for an arrow, my fingers brushed only empty air.
My quiver was gone.
Think. Think, Laurel!
My gaze snapped to Dale’s prone body and his arm pierced straight through by an arrow.
“Sorry, Dale,” I muttered, wincing as I pulled the shaft cleanly out. He groaned, but was apparently all the way unconscious again.
The arrowhead was slick with blood as I nocked it to the bowstring. Father’s bow was built for his strength, not mine, and the draw weight nearly overwhelmed me. My arms quaked, burning instantly. But I held steady, raising the arrow to aim at the two men locked in the deadliest dance I’d ever seen.
I didn’t dare release. I only had one shot, one chance, and I needed to make it count.
The sheriff continued to attack with terrifying speed. That rage had turned him into something feral. He gave a sweeping backhand that Baron blocked. An overhead strike. Blocked. A thrust toward the ribs. Deflected. Another, faster. Side. Forehand. Side again. The sheriff’s fury built into a brutal rhythm, a relentless battering meant to break through anything in its path.
Baron met every strike, but he didn’t counter with his own volley of attacks. His defenses were flawless, quick, and precise, but there was hesitation woven into every motion. I saw his disadvantage clearly now.
Though Baron had the skill and strength to strike a fatal blow, he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He didn’t want to kill the only family he had left.
The sheriff had no such restraint. His blade sought blood without pause, carving vicious arcs through the air.
Baron staggered back a step, then another, forced onto the defensive by the very compassion that had saved him from becoming like his father.
“No,” I whispered, the arrow shaking in my hands. “Please, Baron…fight back.”
