Page 77 of Promised to the Wicked Laird

With a low, guttural roar, Fearchar drove the short, heavy blade upward.

The steel found the narrow gap beneath Robert’s iron jack, biting deep into the soft flesh of his left side, right below the ribs.

Robert froze. A sharp, wet gasp hitched in his throat. His hands loosened on the hilt of his trapped sword, his fingers twitching against the wire wrapping.

Fearchar twisted the blade once, hard, before wrenching it clean out.

Robert staggered backward, his boots shuffling uselessly over the floorboards as he tried to keep his balance. Blood, dark and thick, began to seep rapidly through his wool doublet, staining his tartan a deep, blackish-red. He pressed his gauntleted hand against his side, but the crimson stream poured through his fingers, dripping onto the floor between his feet.

He didn't fall.

Robert took a shaking, shuddering breath, his chest rising in jagged, shallow lifts. Slowly, agonizingly, he turned his head away from Fearchar.

His dark, bloodshot eyes moved across the dim hall, searching the shadows near the cellar archway until they landed on Nandag and Mòrag. He stared at them—at Mòrag clinging to her sister’s side, and at Nandag standing tall before her, her chin lifted, her dark eyes unblinking as she held his gaze.

There was no victory in his eyes now. Only a hollow, bewildered silence.

Slowly, Robert turned his body back toward Fearchar, who was pushing himself up from the floor, wiping the blood from his mouth with his wounded arm, his hand tightening once more around the grip of his broadsword.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

The weight of the broadsword in Fearchar’s left hand felt leaden, the leather wrap slick with his own blood as it dripped from the torn flesh of his right forearm. He brought his boots under him, forcing his trembling legs to take his weight as he stood in the center of the hall, his breath rasping through his teeth.

Five paces away, Robert swayed like an oak cut halfway through its trunk. His hand clutched at the deep, dark gap in his side where Fearchar’s blade had sunk home. Crimson pooled between his fingers, blackening his tartan and splattering onto the ash-strewn stone.

"Look at them," Robert gasped, his voice a wet, bubbling rattle that echoed off the high timber rafters. He spat a mouthful of dark blood onto the floor, his eyes rolling back toward the cellar archway where Nandag and Mòrag stood bound together in the shadows. "Look at the great Lady of Strathglass... and her shivering shadow."

A low, bitter chuckle broke from Robert’s chest, turning instantly into a choked cough that brought him to his knees. He didn't drop his sword. He braced the heavy pommel against the floorboards, using the steel to keep himself upright.

"Ye were right, Fearchar," Robert wheezed, his bloodshot eyes fixing on Mòrag’s pale, tear-streaked face. " I didnae lie in that bed out of soft, foolish affection. She was a key, Chisholm. A weak, frightened little latch tae open their faither’s chest. That’s all she ever was. A Farquharson title wrapped in a wool skirt."

Behind Fearchar, a sharp, ragged gasp caught in Mòrag’s throat, but Nandag’s arms only tightened around her sister’s waist, shielding her, her dark eyes burning into Robert’s face with pure, unyielding stone.

Fearchar took a slow step forward, his boot heavy on the stone, his broadsword dragging an inch through the bloody rushes before he lifted the point. "Save yer breath, Robert. Ye’re bleeding out."

"I took what was mine!" Robert screamed, pushing himself up off his knees, his jaw slick with red. The madness flared bright and hot in his sunken eyes, consuming whatever reason he had left. "When the lass wouldnae bend, I knew what she was—a stubborn, venomous bitch!"

He took a staggering step toward Fearchar, his sword scraping loudly along the oak table edge.

"I sent the spy intae these walls tae cut her throat in her sleep!" Robert snarled, his breath coming in shallow, frantic gasps. "Aye! I wanted her dead! I wanted her head on a spike at the lower gate before she could sign away the keep that belongs tae me by marriage tae the firstborn! And when the royal paper came from ye… ye just had tae spoil it all."

Robert’s chest heaved, his hand tearing at his own collar as if the air itself was poison.

"I burned the lower village!" he roared, a terrible, victorious grin splitting his bloody lips. "I ordered the fires! I gathered every blade from the east tae tear these walls ae the bedrock! If I couldnae sit in the high chair... if I couldnae wear the mantle of Strathglass... then I’d leave ye a pile of cold ash and dead women!"

The silence that followed his words was thick and suffocating.

Even his remaining mercenaries near the postern gate shrank back, their weapons lowering an inch, their eyes turning away in quiet disgust from the man who had bought their steel.

Fearchar raised his blade. His right arm was numb, a steady stream of red running off his fingertips, but his left hand held the iron guard steady as a rock.

"Ye’re nay laird," Fearchar said, his voice dropping into a quiet, absolute register that cut straight through the stink of blood and smoke. "Ye’re just a coward who couldnae bear the sight of his own failure."

Robert let out a wild, high-pitched howl—a sound devoid of reason, of honor, or of hope. He hauled his broadsword off the floor with both hands, ignoring the dark blood spouting from his ribs, and charged across the five paces separating them. His boots slipped on the bloody stone, his posture broken, his sword raised wild and high above his head for a desperate, suicidal strike.

Fearchar didn't step back. He didn't parry.

He stepped straight into the charge, pivoting his weight onto his back heel. As Robert’s blade swept downward in a blind, clumsy arc, Fearchar drove his broadsword forward with the full, heavy thrust of his shoulders.