Her face was pale but her expression fierce, her hair escaping its braid, her breath quick against his neck. He put his arms over her, shielding her with his body as his eyes swept the battlefield.
And that was when he saw him. Seoras MacInnes.
The warlord was retreating across the camp, surrounded by a cluster of his most loyal guards. They were moving quickly toward the far edge of the clearing where several horses waited. Anger flared. If MacInnes escaped, everything he’d risked would mean nothing. The man would vanish into the hills, rebuild his network, and return stronger than before.
He could not let them happen.
“Stay here,” he ordered Ruby. “Keep low. Stay hidden.”
“But where are you—”
“I have to stop him.”
Before she could reply, he climbed to his feet and began zigzagging through the trees. He barely registered the men who tried to stop him—only the movement of their weapons and theinstinctive responses his body had learned years ago. A sword thrust came at his ribs but he knocked it aside and drove his knife into the man’s shoulder. A man rushed him from the side so Evan slammed his elbow into his throat and kept moving.
MacInnes was almost at the horses now.
Gunshots and smoke filled the air around him but Evan didn’t slow. The fury inside him had burned away everything else—fear, caution, even pain. All that remained was the raw need to reach the man who had nearly destroyed everything.
A blade suddenly sliced across his arm, cutting through cloth and skin. He turned and kicked the man holding it in the knee, hearing bone and cartilage crunch. Another man lunged and Evan drove his shoulder into him and sent him crashing into the mud.
But more of MacInnes’ men came running. There were five of them now. Then six. They formed a tight ring around him, raising loaded pistols.
Evan staggered to a halt.
MacInnes watched from across the clearing, his single eye gleaming with amusement. “Still reckless, eh Campbell?” he called. “That’s one of the things I always liked about ye. Ye were never scared of the odds.”
Evan spotted a movement out of the corner of his eye—one of the guards’ fingers moving on the trigger of his pistol. He threw himself to the ground and rolled, just as the shot cracked through the air and caught another man in the shoulder, spinning him around in a spray of blood. The guards closed in, stowing their pistols and drawing swords instead. Steel flashed toward Evan from three sides. He parried one strike, ducked another—but a third slammed into his shoulder and sent him staggering.
He grabbed up a fallen sword, but there were too many men. He couldn’t fight them all, despite his desperation, despite the fury roaring in his veins.
“Evan!”
A sword crashed into one of MacInnes’ guards, knocking him aside, and Niall burst into the circle. Another guard fell with a cry as Bryce slammed into him from the other side.
The pressure around Evan broke and he was able to pause to take a breath. For a moment the three brothers stood looking at each other, chests heaving.
“What in all the hells are ye both doing here?”
“Ruby figured it out,” Niall gasped. “That they’d changed the dates.”
Ruby. Of course. She was shrewder than any of them. “So how did ye know where to find me?”
“I’ve had men following ye,” Bryce said. “Watching every move ye made.”
“Ye mean ye didnae trust me,” Evan growled.
Bryce shrugged. “Let’s just call it ‘being prepared’, shall we?”
MacInnes’ men were regrouping now, more of them rushing towards Evan and his brothers. Bryce took the first man, his powerful swing driving the attacker back. He had always been a master swordsman and it seemed he’d not let his skills slip in the years since Evan had seen him.
Niall slipped past a strike and cut his opponent down. Evan turned just as a blade came toward his ribs, knocking it aside while Bryce stepped into the opening and finished the man.
Their movements flowed together like water and Evan felt a strange flash of memory. The three of them as boys in the courtyard, wooden swords in their hands, laughing and shouting as they pretended to be heroes from the old stories—warriors of the Order of the Osprey.
The guards fell one by one until finally only MacInnes remained. He didn’t run. He didn’t even look scared. He stepped forward slowly, drawing his sword.
Evan moved to meet him. “Give it up, MacInnes. This is over.”
