Page 11 of Queen of Rebels (Shifters of Sherwood #3)

The gleam of hardwood stretches endlessly ahead of us, everything polished to a shine that undoubtedly took Rosa hours. Tuck's footsteps are careful, precise, but I catch how his eyes drift to the doorways to every room: the oil paintings, the stately antique furniture, the fresh arrangement of white lilies perched just-so on the hallway table.

"So this is where he kept you?"

“Not here, exactly.” I glance back down the hall, to where my wing of the house curves off. “I had my own VIP suite.”

Tuck gives a short laugh, but there’s no humor in it.

"Did you..." He chews his lip. "What was it like? Being here?"

The question catches in my chest. Memories surface: endless silent dinners, Guy's weirdly slick charm, the suffocating weight of his plans for me. But what I really remember is feeling cold, even in the thick of summer.

Completely alone.

"Quiet," I finally say, keeping my voice low. "Everything was always so quiet."

Tuck's hand brushes mine in the darkness, just for a moment.

"Come on," I whisper, forcing myself to focus. "His office is upstairs."

But I catch Tuck's lingering glance at the grand staircase, and I know he's imagining me walking down it in whatever Stepford Wives version of Maren Guy had tried to create. The thought makes my MegaValu clothes itch against my skin.

“Weird taste,” Tuck says as we pass by a series of portraits—relatives, presumably. “Little egocentric, isn’t it?”

“Putting it lightly,” I remark. “He’s kind of obsessed with...I don’t know, pedigree.”

“And that’s why he wanted you?”

I freeze, mid-tiptoe. “I mean, I guess.” I’d always assumed it was an ego thing, wanting the daughter of a legendary lawyer to be his bride—barf—but maybe he also expected me to pump out little Gisbournes for him, too.

The thought makes me sick. I shake it away.

"I think he got off on the idea of 'saving' me,” I finish. “His own little Cinderella story."

We reach the study door. Tuck crouches at the keypad, studying, murmuring, but I brush him away.

"Here, let me." I key in the code from memory: 7-6-7-2.

"You know the code?" Tuck's voice carries a hint of something - disappointment? “Did you reset the program, or—”

“I guessed it, way back when,” I say. “R-O-S-A.”

“Ah. Good ol’ fashioned social engineering.” It’s a joke, but he doesn’t sound too happy about it.

"Hey." I catch his eye in the darkness. "I was stuck here for weeks, remember? But that doesn't mean I know how to unencrypt things, or whatever.

He brightens a little at that. "Right.”

The study is exactly as I remember it - all dark wood and leather. But tonight, the pretentious decor that once made me feel small and terrified just pisses me off.

Tuck settles into Guy's leather chair like he belongs there, finally at home in the blue glow of the computer screen.

“You know his login, I assume?”

I nod. “Unless it’s changed.” I reach over the keyboard and type it in, and...

“Open sesame,” Tuck says. “We’re in.”

“So...” I hesitate, looking from Tuck to the screen. “...now what? We just look for a file folder labeled I am doing crime ?”

Tuck scoffs. “Please, Maren.” He pulls up a single, black window with a blinking cursor, and launches into a string of characters, typing furiously.

It transforms him. Gone is the gentle, stammering boy who stress-bakes when he's worried. This Tuck radiates competence, fingers flying across the keyboard while lines of code reflect in his glasses. I find myself watching his hands, mesmerized by their sure movement, him so completely in their element.

"Got it," he breathes after what feels like hours. "Financial records, emails, everything." His eyes scan rapidly behind his glasses. “There’s a lot here.”

"We'll have time to be horrified later." I squeeze his shoulder. Somewhere, on the other side of Sherwood, Guy is probably well into his third julep, and time is not on our side. “Can you transfer it?"

He shakes his head. "No devices to transfer to, remember? And our bootlegger's paradise isn't exactly equipped with WiFi." His fingers drum against the desk. "We'll have to print. Hard copies."

Tuck tweaks the settings, shrinking the font until it's barely legible. "More data per page means less to carry," he explains. His fingers dance across the keyboard, multiple windows flashing across the screen as he works.

The question bubbles up before I can stop it: "Why did you learn all this tech stuff if you have literal magical powers?"

His fingers pause for a fraction of a second. Beside us, the printer whirs to life. "What do you mean?"

"Just...I don’t know. You can turn into a wolf . But here you are, writing code and hacking into hidden files like some kind of normal person."

“Hah.” He smiles, and keeps typing, but I catch the slight hunch of his shoulders again. “Well, it’s always good to have skills. Besides, I was good at math and computers way before I knew about..." He gestures vaguely at himself. "All this."

Something in his tone makes me wait. After a moment, he sighs.

"Besides..." He trails off, leans back in the chair. "I'm not exactly..." Another pause. "Look, it's pretty obvious I'm not like the others, right? Not much of a fighter."

My heart twists. "Tuck—”

“Nah, it's okay." His voice is quiet but steady. “The other guys are just more natural to that part of the whole thing. I’m more of a...self-study guy, or whatever. It is what it is.” A small, self-deprecating shrug. “Too bad you can’t go to the library to learn shifter combat techniques, I guess.”

The admission hangs in the air between us. Then something clicks in my memory. “The book,” I say out loud.

Tuck frowns. “Book?”

“Guy has a book,” I clarify. “About shifters.”

Tuck's head snaps up, eyes suddenly bright with interest. "Really? What kind of book?"

"Old. Leather-bound. Had these weird symbols on it. I saw it when I was here before. That’s how I knew that he...knew.”

Intrigue is written all over Tuck’s face, even as he glances back to the printer.

I know what he’s thinking. “Let’s go get it. Steal it.”

“What?” Tuck glances at the screen, then back at me. “We really shouldn't..."

"Come on." I give his shoulder a squeeze. "When are we going to get another chance? There’s so much we don’t even know. You have to be curious. I’m curious. And you can actually read Latin, or whatever.”

"Well..." He adjusts his glasses, but I can see the eager light in his eyes. For all his magical powers and tech savvy, Tuck’s still a book nerd at heart. "I guess it doesn’t hurt to be thorough.”

#

The book is exactly where I remember it, tucked between towering shelves in what I now realize is an entire section dedicated to the supernatural. I ease it out carefully - dark leather, those strange symbols even more unsettling up close.

"Holy shit," Tuck breathes, taking it from me with reverent hands. He opens it, and the pages crackle with age. "This is... this is incredible. Look at these illustrations."

I peer over his shoulder as he delicately flips through it. Detailed anatomical drawings show the shift between human and animal forms, notations in multiple languages cramming the margins. "Can you read any of it?"

"Some." His finger traces lines of text. "This part's in Latin... something about the physical toll of shifting. And here-" He switches to another page. "German. A theoretical framework for how the magic works." He looks up at the surrounding shelves with new interest. "What else does he have?"

Tuck moves along the shelves, translating titles in a hushed voice. " Metamorphoses Naturalis ... Die Geheimnisse der Gestaltwandler ... Bestiary of the Northern Tribes ..." He pulls down a slim volume bound in pale leather. "This one's a firsthand account from the...1700s, I think? A wolf shifter in Bavaria..."

I'm scanning the shelves too now, and something catches my eye. "What about these?" I point to a collection of leather-bound journals.

Tuck opens one and his breath catches. "These are research notes. Recent ones. Guy's been studying shifters systematically - documenting known bloodlines, theorizing about genetic markers..." He flips through more pages. "Maren, this is decades of work. If he's right about half of this..."

"Then we need all of it." The realization hits me like lightning. "Not just the shifter book - all of it. His whole research collection."

“You want to just carry a whole library out of here?” He stares down at my jacket pockets, which are already crammed full of paper printouts, folded impossibly small. “We’d need a U-Haul for...”

He trails off as understanding dawns. "The Mustang."

"It's right outside." My pulse quickens. "Plenty of trunk space. And I know how to start the engine, um...keylessly.”

"You want to steal your car back and Guy's entire supernatural library?" A pause, then a slow smile spreads across his face. "That's... actually kind of perfect."

We start gathering books, moving as quickly as we dare. Tuck keeps making little sounds of discovery - "Oh! Original woodcuts!" and "Is this actually written in blood ?" as the pile grows, and I nudge him.

“Not too ambitious, okay? Try to grab just what’s essential.”

“Okay, okay,” Tuck concedes. “But—”

"Guy?"

We freeze, arms full of stolen knowledge. The voice echoes from the hallway—a woman’s voice. And not Rosa’s.

"Guy? Is that you, darling?”

"Darling?" Tuck mouths at me, eyebrows raised, and whispers. "He has a girlfriend?"

I shake my head, about to say that if he does, it’s news to me, when the voice continues:

"Don't tell me you've left your mother to visit you in an empty house!"

Mother?

Guy told me his mother died. Cancer.

Not that I’m surprised. Not that I should be surprised, at yet another lie.

But the revelation must shake me more than I realize, because something - my hand, my foot, something stupid and awful - makes a sound.

"Who's there?" The voice sharpens with suspicion. "Rosa?"

Tuck doesn’t move. I barely breathe.

But it’s not enough.

There’s a pause, a rummaging sound.

"Hello, Sheriff Wheatley? Cecily Gisbourne.” Her tone is sharp, commanding. “Yes, visiting the house—I think there’s someone here . Send me two units, and not your usual idiots.”

A floorboard creaks.

"We have to run," Tuck whispers. "Now!"