Page 72 of Her Highlander's Darkest Temptation
Donall came to a stop, Ewan and the others taking up guard stances behind him. “Let her go.”
“She’s mine.” Laird Wycliffe snarled the words. “My property, until the day I sign her over in marriage to Lord Cameron.”
“’Tis nae gonna happen.” Donall ground the words out.
“Aye, it will.” Laird Cameron stepped forward, an almost feral smile on his face. “It will happen because if either ye or any o’ yer men attempt tae stop it, one of us will slit her throat. An alliance in blood o’ a different kind can be forged - especially if we tell the king thatyekilled her, an’ we united in bloodsworn vengeance again’ ye. I would like tae remind ye she was mine long before ye had even met her, and I paid quite a sum fer what now may be damaged goods.”
Ewan cursed. “Ye bloody-minded, evil bastard…”
“Och, watch yer temper. We wouldnae want Laird Wycliffe’s hand tae slip in anger…” Rory Cameron’s smile was a cold, mocking thing. He had them at stalemate, or even a disadvantage, and he knew it.
Donall bit his lip until the blood flowed. Risk the gaol and Lydia’s death, or withdraw? His heart screamed for him to charge forward and yank her to safety, but his head warned it would be folly, and his gut clenched in fear for Lydia and the echoes of old memories.
Then Lydia took matters into her own hands.
Neither man was paying her much attention. Laird Wycliffe and Laird Cameron likely thought her too frail or too cowed to act. Donall could have told them otherwise. As it was, he could only watch in delighted amazement as Lydia put the lessons he’d taught her into practice.
A head toss first, throwing her hair into her uncle’s eyes and narrowly avoiding breaking his nose as he dodged. Then a stomp, delivered in her sensible, all-weather boots with all the force she could manage. The blow raked his shin hard enough to take skin off even through the leather trews, and crashed into his instep hard enough to make the boot leather creak under it.
Lord Wycliffe stumbled back with a howl of pain, knife falling away as Lydia turned and hit him as hard in the gut as she could with her bound arms, then whipped the same leg up in a knee strike that Donall suspected ensured that even if he ever found a wife, Lord Wycliffe would never sire an heir.
Laird Wycliffe crashed to the ground in a breathless, gasping heap.
“Ye treacherous, misbegotten little wench!” Rory Cameron lunged at Lydia, his usually cold face a mask of fury and violence. Donall snarled and dove forward.
Rory Cameron was bigger than he was, but Donall was faster. He was also far, far angrier.
Donall knocked away the first strike, then drove in with his own blade, forcing Rory Cameron back in a flurry of blows that rang through the watch tower. He was vaguely aware of his men spreading out, of Ewan taking a place at Lydia’s side, but all his focus was on the man before him. The man who’d hunted an innocent girl, who’d attacked his people, killed his men, assaulted his castle - and all for a lass he could have simply asked to have returned, or else given up on and allowed to go free.
Rory Cameron stumbled back a few steps, taken aback by his fury. Then the cold mask slid into place, and he countered, blocked, countered again, then drove in, putting Donall on the defensive in a reversal of fortune.
Donall blocked, parried a strike and dodged a thrust that would have spitted him like a Christmas goose if it had landed, then blocked again and slid sideways in a pattern he’d practiced with Lydia, and drew a dagger from his belt into his off hand.
He feinted right, brought his sword up as if leaving an opening of his own - he faked going for an overhead with too much energy and not enough control to avoid swinging too high - and saw the instant Rory Cameron took the bait. The other man swung hard, clearly intending to cleave him in two.
Donall took one step back, leaped left, parried with his dagger and brought his sword down in a sharp, crescent arc all in the same motion. His chest burned with the strain of it, but it didn’t matter.
The blade cut deep into Rory Cameron’s chest, shattering his mailed surcoat and the ribs on his left side, and shredding the organs underneath. Cameron choked, blood flooding from his side as Donall wrenched his blade free, then spitting from his lips as he tried to breathe through lungs that had likely been cut apart.
Then he fell, dead before he hit the ground.
Chest heaving, Donall turned toward Lydia. She was standing beside Ewan, her bindings cut and a cloak over her shoulders. She looked tired, battered, bruised and splattered with blood… and she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.
He stepped toward her, intending to take her in his arms, then stopped as a groan echoed from the stone wall behind and to her left. Scowling, Donall stepped around her to find Lord Wycliffe, ashen faced and still clutching his injured groin and belly.
“Ye wretch…” Donall stalked forward, raising his sword as he went. He was prepared to drive it home in the man’s gut, when a slim, pale hand on his arm stopped him.
“Donall… wait, please.”
Her head was pounding, her whole body trembling in the aftermath of watching Donall fight Rory Cameron to the death and win. Her heart raced like the winds of a summer storm, and Lydia was certain she’d never felt anything as strongly as she felt relief when Donall emerged victorious.
She saw him turn to her, move toward her, then stop, relief and warmth fleeing from his gaze as he stepped around her and prepared to kill her uncle.
There was a part of her that wanted nothing more than to let him. Even so, Lydia found herself stepping forward. “Donall… wait. Please.”
He turned to her with a face like stone. “Why?”
Why indeed?
