Chapter 34
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
He'd gotten halfway across the village when the rider reached him, one of his own men, breathless, eyes wide.
"It's a diversion, me laird. They're at the castle."
He already started turning his horse before the man finished speaking.
The ride seemed long, but he got to the courtyard eventually.
"Alba!"
Lachlann's voice tore across the courtyard, raw and furious.
Then he'd seen Torquil's horse round the bend from the treeline, seen the way Alba was slung across the saddle, and something in his chest had gone cold and sharp and entirely focused.
He sprinted across the open ground, sword already drawn, his boots pounding against stone.
A soldier in Torquil's colors moved to intercept him, some fool who thought he could stop what was coming. Lachlann ducked under the swing without breaking stride, brought his elbow up into the man's jaw, and kept moving.
"Alba!" he shouted again.
Torquil had dismounted by the time Lachlann reached them. He was dragging Alba off the horse, his hand fisted in her hair, and when he saw Lachlann coming, his face shifted. Surprise first, then calculation, then something that might have been satisfaction.
"MacKinnon," Torquil said. "I was hopin' ye'd come."
Lachlann didn't answer. He closed the distance and swung.
Torquil barely got his sword up in time. The clash rang out across the courtyard, steel on steel.
Lachlann pressed forward immediately, not giving him room to set his feet, just allowing him the driving momentum of someone who had stopped caring about strategy and started caring only about results.
"Let her go," Lachlann said, his voice low and deadly calm despite the fury coursing through him.
"She's mine by right," Torquil spat, parrying another strike. "The king's warrant—"
"The king's warrant is worth naethin'." Lachlann struck again, forcing Torquil back a step. "She's me wife. Consummated. Witnessed. Legal in every way that matters."
Torquil's face went white, then red. "Ye're lyin'."
"I dinnae lie." Another strike, harder this time. "Let. Her. Go."
Torquil lunged wildly, rage overtaking whatever skill he'd brought to the fight, and Lachlann sidestepped easily, his sword coming up to knock Torquil's blade aside.
The man was off-balance now, stumbling, his movements desperate rather than controlled.
Behind him, Alba wriggled free of Torquil's loosened grip and scrambled backward.
Captain was there and he positioned himself between Alba and Torquil with his teeth bared and a growl rumbling deep in his chest.
"Good lad," Lachlann said, not taking his eyes off Torquil.
Torquil recovered his footing and came at him again, with a overhead strike that had power behind it but no finesse.
Lachlann parried, stepped inside Torquil's guard, and drove his shoulder into the man's chest, sending him staggering back across the stone courtyard.
"Ye cannae win this," Lachlann said, his voice still calm. "Yield."
"I'll see ye dead first," Torquil snarled.
"If that's yer choice."
Torquil lunged again. Reckless, angry, the kind of attack a desperate man made when he knew he was losing. Lachlann waited for it, read the trajectory of it, and stepped aside at the last possible moment.
Torquil's momentum carried him past, his sword swinging through empty air, and Lachlann brought his own blade around in a clean, decisive arc.
The strike took Torquil in the side, just below the ribs.
Clean. Final.
Torquil made a sound––half gasp, half grunt––and his sword clattered to the stone. He looked down at himself, at the spreading red across his shirt, and then he looked at Lachlann with an expression of pure disbelief.
"Ye—" he started.
He didn't finish.
He collapsed, his eyes still wide, still trying to process what had happened, and then the light went out of them and he was simply gone.
Lachlann stood over him for a moment, breathing hard, his sword still raised. Around them, the courtyard had gone very quiet.
Torquil's men were staring. Some at their fallen laird, some at Lachlann, all of them clearly trying to decide what happened next.
Lachlann made the decision for them.
"Yer laird is dead," he said, his voice carrying across the courtyard with an authority that left no room for argument. "The fight is over. Lay down yer weapons and leave me lands or stay and join him. Choose now."
For a long moment, no one moved.
Then one man dropped his sword. Then another. Then they were all dropping them, backing away, their faces registering relief.
Lachlann watched them retreat, his sword still ready, until the last of them had cleared the courtyard and were scrambling down the path toward the beach.
Only then did he turn.
Alba was standing where he'd last seen her, her hand on Captain’s head, her face pale and streaked with dirt and tears.
She was trembling. He could see it from where he stood, the way her whole body was shaking, but she was on her feet and she was whole and she was there.
He went towards her and pulled her against him.
"Ye're all right," he said into her hair. Not a question. A statement he needed to make true by saying it.
"Aye," she said, her voice muffled against his chest. "Aye, I'm all right."
He held her tighter, his sword still in one hand, his other arm wrapped around her so firmly he was probably hurting her, but she didn’t complaining.
Around them, his men were beginning to move again. They started securing the courtyard, checking for wounded, heading to the village to help with the fires in the village, but he didn't move.
Not yet.
"He touched her face, his thumb brushing across a bruise that was already forming on her cheekbone. "Are ye hurt?"
"Nae badly. Bruised. Scared." She managed a watery smile. "But alive."
"Aye." He pressed his forehead to hers for a moment. "Ye're alive."
Captain pushed his nose into Lachlann's leg, demanding attention, and Lachlann crouched down to check him over.
"Ye're a good lad," Lachlann said, scratching behind the dog's ears. "A very good lad. Ye protected her."
Captain’s tail wagged harder.
Alba crouched beside him, her hand joining his on the dog's head. "He bit Torquil," she said. "Wouldnae let go. They had to hit him to get him off."
"He's earned every piece of meat in the kitchen," Lachlann said.
"And probably a place on the bed," Alba added.
"Dinnae push yer luck."
She laughed, shaky and breathless but real, and he felt some of the tightness in his chest ease.
The courtyard was still chaos, but it was organized chaos now.
Men were carrying water to the last of the fires, tending to the wounded, rounding up the horses that had scattered during the fight. James appeared at Lachlann's shoulder.
"The ships are leavin'," he said. "All of them. Torquil's men want nay part of this without him."
"Good." Lachlann scanned the courtyard. "Casualties?"
"Five wounded, none serious. Three dead, two of ours, one of theirs." James paused. "We were lucky, me laird."
"Aye," Lachlann said. "We were. And the village?”
“The fires have been contained and stopped and nae too much has been lost. A few people slightly injured but nay dead”.
“Very lucky indeed, we were…”
He turned back to Alba.
She had a cut on her arm, not deep, but bleeding, and the bruise on her face was darkening by the minute.
She looked exhausted and battered and entirely unbowed, and he felt a surge of something fierce and protective that he had mostly stopped trying to analyze.
"Come," he said. "Let's get ye cleaned up."
They retreated to his chambers, away from the noise and the aftermath.
Alba sat on the edge of the bed while Lachlann retrieved water and clean linen from the basin, and when he knelt in front of her she looked at him with an expression he couldn't quite read.
"Ye killed him," she said quietly.
"Aye." He began cleaning the cut on her arm with careful, methodical movements. "I did."
"Dae ye regret it?"
He looked up at her. "Nay. Dae ye think I should?"
She was quiet for a moment. "Nay," she said finally. "He would have killed ye if he could have. And he would have taken me." She stopped, her jaw tightening. "Nay. I dinnae think ye should regret it."
He nodded and went back to cleaning the wound. It was shallow, like he'd thought, but it would need binding. He wrapped it carefully, his hands steady despite the adrenaline still coursing through him.
"Yer face," he said, touching the bruise on her cheek gently. "Daes it hurt?"
"Aye."
"He hit ye."
"Aye. When I tried tae fight him."
Something dark flickered across Lachlann's face. "Good that he's dead, then."
"Aye," she said. "Good that he's dead."
He finished with her arm and stood to get a clean cloth for her face. When he turned back, she was looking at him with that same unreadable expression.
"What?" he said.
"Ye're bleedin'," she said.
He looked down.
There was blood on his shirt, not a lot, but enough. He'd taken a glancing blow across his ribs during the fight and hadn't registered it until now.
"It's naethin'," he said.
"Let me see."
"Alba."
"Lachlann." She stood and crossed to him. "Let me see."
He sighed and pulled off his shirt.
The cut wasn't deep, barely more than a scratch, really, but it was bleeding steadily and would need cleaning.
"Sit," she said, pointing at the chair.
"I'm fine."
"Sit."
He sat.
She cleaned the wound with the same careful attention he'd used on her, her hands gentle despite the slight tremor in them.
He watched her work.
The concentration in her face, the way she bit her lower lip when she was focusing.
He felt the last of the urgency drain out of him, leaving only exhaustion and a profound, bone-deep relief.
"Thank ye," she said quietly, still focused on his ribs. "Fer comin' fer me." She paused, her hands stilling.
He reached up and tilted her chin so she was looking at him. "I'll always come fer ye," he said. "That's nae negotiable."
She held his gaze for a long moment, and then she leaned down and kissed him, soft and careful and entirely deliberate.
When she pulled back, her eyes were bright with tears.
"Ye're mine," she said. "Ye ken that, aye? Legally, formally, in every way that matters. I protect what's mine too."
He smiled, the first real smile he'd managed since the bells had woken him that morning.
"Aye," he said. "I ken."
She finished binding his ribs and stepped back to examine her work. "That'll dae."
"Ye've steady hands," he said.
"I had a good teacher." She glanced at the window, where the morning light was beginning to shift toward afternoon. "What happens now?"
"Now," he said, pulling his shirt back on and wincing slightly, "we send word tae the king. We tell him what happened, all of it. We make sure he kens the truth of yer situation before anyone else can spin it differently."
"And if he daesnae believe us?"
"We deal with that if it happens." He stood and crossed to her, taking her hands in his. "But I dinnae think it will come tae that. Ye're me wife now. That changes the shape of things considerably."
She nodded, and some of the tension went out of her shoulders.
"Come here," he said, and pulled her against him again.
She went easily, resting her head on his shoulder, and they stood like that while the castle settled around them and the smoke from the village fires began to clear and somewhere out on the water, Torquil's ships sailed away without their laird.
"We did it," she said after a while. "We actually did it."
"Aye," he said. "We did."
"I love ye," she said.
Quietly. Simply. Like it was just a fact she was stating.
He went very still.
He pulled back just enough to look at her.
"I love ye too," he said. "I have fer longer than I've been willin' tae admit, even tae meself."
She stared at him. "Truly?"
"Truly." He touched her face, his thumb brushing across her uninjured cheek. "I'm nae good at sayin' these things. But aye. I love ye."
He kissed her, harder this time, and she thought that if that was what came after nearly losing everything, she would take it.
She would take it and hold onto it and never let it go.