Page 122 of The Highlander Steals a Virgin
The sound that tore from Rhys’s throat wasn’t human. He surged forward, blade raised, but before he could strike, mercenaries poured in from behind them, armed and shouting.
Finn dove behind the stage like a coward. “Kill them!” he roared.
Rhys didn’t hesitate. He plunged into the fight, Myles and William beside him. Steel clashed against steel. Rhys drove his blade through the first man, parried the second, and shoved a third back with a roar.
“Get to Finn!” William shouted, blood spattered across his cheek.
But the mercenaries kept coming.
Rhys cut down another, and another, fury in every blow. His side ached from the earlier wound, but he couldn’t feel it now. Only rage. Only betrayal.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Finn slipping past the melee into the training grounds.
“Coward!” he bellowed, but another man blocked his path.
He hacked through him with a vicious strike.
Myles’s voice rang out again. “Go! We’ve got this!”
Rhys locked eyes with him, nodded once, and tore down the hall after Finn.
And all he saw was red.
The courtyard blurred around him as he ran.
Rhys’s boots pounded stone of the training grounds, blood slicking his side where an earlier cut had reopened, but he didn’t care. He didn’t feel it. Not really. All he could feel was the white-hot fire screaming in his chest. Every breath was a roar. Every step a drumbeat of vengeance.
Finn’s footsteps surged back into the keep, just ahead of him, the rat-bastard was fast despite his cowardice. Rhys followed the trail — spatters of mud, a half-kicked tapestry, the smear of a hand against a pillar. He was heading toward the east tower, the old war wing that had once belonged to Rhys’s grandfather.
Fitting. The traitor would flee to the ghosts of old power.
Rhys burst through a side hall, catching the flick of Finn’s cloak just as the bastard shoved through a heavy door.
He followed without hesitation.
The room beyond was cold and stone-hewn, a long-abandoned solar half-crumbled from neglect. Dust hung thick in the air. Only one window slit let the dying afternoon light cast bars across the floor.
Finn stood in the center, chest heaving, sword now drawn.
“Ye made it,” he said, lips curling.
Rhys slowed to a stop. “Ye ran.”
“Iled,” Finn corrected, lifting his chin. “Ye just never saw it.”
“Ye murdered me father.”
Finn didn’t flinch. “Because he stood in me way.”
Rhys stalked a step closer, blade still lowered. “He loved ye like a son. He trained ye. He trusted ye.”
“That was his first mistake,” Finn snapped. “He should’ve feared me.”
“Then this is where it ends.”
“Aye,” Finn said. “It is.”
He struck first.
