Chapter 40
CHAPTER FORTY
Euan’s blade intercepted Keith’s dagger with a screech of steel on steel that made Moyra’s teeth ache.
“Ye want her?” Euan’s voice came out as a growl, feral and deadly. “Ye’ll have tae go through me first.”
He shoved Keith backward with brutal force, his sword already moving in a strike that would have taken the older man’s head if Keith hadn’t stumbled out of range.
Around them, the MacKenzie warriors hesitated—caught between their orders to overwhelm the defenders and the sudden, visceral understanding that their laird was engaged in single combat.
“Stand back!” Keith commanded his men, his eyes blazing with fury. “This bastard is mine.”
“Gladly.” Euan adjusted his grip, moving to put himself squarely between Keith and Moyra. Blood already dripped from a gash on his arm, his breathing came hard, but his stance remained solid. “I’ve been wanting tae dae this since I found her in that cell.”
Keith circled, his dagger held low and ready. He moved well for a man his age—balanced, controlled, the competence of someone who’d spent years fighting. But Euan moved better. Moved like a man defending everything he loved against the monster who’d tried to destroy it.
They clashed in the center of the courtyard, blade meeting blade in a flurry of strikes too fast for Moyra to follow.
Keith fought with calculated precision, each attack designed to test defenses, to find openings.
Euan fought with barely controlled fury, his sword singing as it carved through the space where Keith’s throat had been a heartbeat before.
“Ye were supposed tae be easy,” Keith panted, disengaging to circle again. “A scarred cripple playing at being laird. But ye’ve proven more troublesome than anticipated.”
“I’m full of surprises.” Euan’s blade flashed out, forcing Keith to parry desperately. “Like the surprise that yer daughter is worth ten of ye. That she’s braver and stronger and infinitely more valuable than yer pathetic ambitions.”
“She’s a weakness!” Keith lunged, his dagger seeking Euan’s exposed side. “A liability that clouds yer judgment! Just as her maither was mine!”
Euan twisted, the blade missing by inches. His elbow came up, catching Keith across the face with a crack that sent the older man staggering. Blood poured from Keith’s nose, but he kept his grip on the dagger, kept circling.
“Moyra!” Keith’s voice carried across the courtyard. “Ye see what ye’ve done? Ye’ve made this man vulnerable. Made him weak. He’ll die because of ye!”
“Shut yer mouth.” Euan’s strike came fast and brutal, his blade catching Keith’s dagger arm. Steel bit through leather and flesh, and Keith’s weapon clattered to the stones. But the older man was already moving, drawing a hidden blade from his belt, lunging with desperate speed.
The secondary blade caught Euan across the ribs—a glancing blow, but deep enough that blood bloomed across his side. He stumbled, his scarred shoulder protesting, his breathing hitching.
“There!” Keith pressed his advantage, striking again and again. “There’s the weakness! The old wounds that never healed properly! Did ye truly think ye could match me, boy?”
But Euan’s stumble had been deliberate. As Keith overextended on his next strike, Euan’s sword swept up in a brutal arc that took Keith’s blade hand off at the wrist.
Keith’s scream echoed off stone walls. He fell back, clutching the spurting stump, his face gone grey with shock and agony. His severed hand lay on the stones, fingers still curled around the dagger’s grip.
“That’s fer the dungeon.” Euan advanced, his own blood mixing with Keith’s on the courtyard stones. “Fer every day she spent in that cell waiting fer ye to go save her.”
His blade flashed again, catching Keith across the thigh. The older man collapsed, unable to support his weight.
“That’s fer the villages ye burned. The children ye murdered.”
Another strike, opening Keith’s shoulder.
“That’s fer making her believe she was worthless. That she was naething but a problem tae be solved.”
Keith tried to crawl backward, leaving a trail of blood. His warriors had gone still, frozen by the brutal efficiency of their laird’s dismantling. Even Calum and Archibald had stopped fighting, watching as Euan systematically destroyed the man who’d caused so much suffering.
“Please—” Keith’s voice cracked. “Please, I’m her faither—”
“Ye stopped being her faither the moment ye sent her tae die.” Euan grabbed Keith by the throat, hauling him upright. His eyes were black with fury, his face set in lines of absolute judgment. “And this—”
His sword drove through Keith’s chest, punching through leather and bone to find the heart beneath. Keith’s eyes went wide with shock, with the sudden understanding that he’d lost, that his carefully laid plans had ended with his own death at the hands of the crippled laird he’d underestimated.
“This is fer Moyra.” Euan’s voice dropped to something quiet and final. “May whatever gods exist show ye more mercy than ye showed yer own daughter. Though I doubt they will.”
He withdrew the blade. Keith MacKenzie crumpled to the stones, blood pooling beneath him, his eyes already going glassy with death.
Silence fell across the courtyard like a shroud.
Then, from somewhere in the MacKenzie ranks, a warrior dropped his sword. The clatter of steel on stone seemed to break the spell. Another weapon fell. Then another. Within moments, the entire MacKenzie force was throwing down arms, their fight draining away with their laird’s last breath.
“It’s over,” Calum said quietly. “The battle’s over.”
Euan swayed, his sword suddenly too heavy to hold. It slipped from his fingers, clattering to the stones beside Keith’s corpse. He took one step toward Moyra, then another, his movements unsteady.
“Euan?” Her voice seemed to come from very far away.
He tried to answer, tried to tell her he was fine, that the wound in his side was nothing, that he just needed a moment to catch his breath. But his legs wouldn’t support him anymore. The courtyard tilted sideways, stone rushing up to meet him.
Strong hands caught him before he hit the ground. Moyra’s face appeared above his, her eyes wide with terror, her hands pressing against his side where blood poured far too quickly.
“Nay, nay, nay—” Her voice cracked. “Euan, stay with me! Dinnae ye dare—”
“I’m fine,” he managed, though speaking took more effort than it should. “Just tired. So bloody tired.”
“Brighde!” Moyra’s scream echoed off stone walls. “Someone get Brighde! Now!”
Footsteps pounded. Voices rose in urgent discussion. But Euan couldn’t focus on any of it. His vision had narrowed to Moyra’s face—copper hair falling around her like a curtain, tears streaming down her cheeks, her hands so warm against his skin despite the cold creeping through his limbs.
“I killed him,” he said, or tried to say. The words came out slurred. “Yer faither. I killed yer faither fer ye.”
“I ken.” She pressed harder against his side, trying to stem bleeding that wouldn’t stop. “I ken ye did. Now stay with me. Please, Euan. I just found ye. I cannae lose ye now.”
He wanted to promise. Wanted to tell her he wasn’t going anywhere, that they’d survived the invasion and would survive this too. But exhaustion crashed over him like a wave, pulling him under despite his best efforts to stay afloat.
“Love ye,” he managed. “Should’ve said it more. Should’ve—”
Darkness claimed him.
Moyra’s hands were covered in blood—Euan’s blood, her father’s blood, so much blood she couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began.
“Move!” Brighde appeared with her healer’s bag, her weathered face grim. “Let me see him!”
Moyra didn’t want to let go. Didn’t want to stop pressing against that terrible wound in his side, as if her hands alone could keep him alive through sheer determination.
But Brighde’s firm grip pried her away, and then the healer was working—tearing fabric, pouring something that made Euan’s unconscious body jerk, packing the wound with clean linen that immediately soaked through with red.
“How bad?” Calum asked quietly from behind Moyra. His eyes tracked every movement of Brighde’s hands.
“Bad enough.” The healer didn’t look up from her work. “The blade missed vital organs, but he’s lost a lot of blood. And that shoulder wound from years ago—it’s torn open again. He’s going tae be in agony when he wakes.”
“When he wakes,” Moyra repeated, latching onto those words. “Ye said when, nae if.”
“Aye.” Brighde finally looked at her, and Moyra saw both concern and determination in her eyes. “He’s strong. Stubborn as Highland granite. He’ll wake. But he needs rest, proper care, and time tae heal. Can ye give him that?”
“Anything.” Moyra’s voice came out fierce. “Whatever he needs. Whatever it takes.”
“Then help me get him tae bed.” Brighde gestured to Archibald. “Carefully now. We dinnae want tae start the bleeding again.”
The massive warrior lifted Euan as if he weighed nothing, cradling him with surprising gentleness as they navigated through the courtyard.
Around them, MacLeod warriors were securing surrendered MacKenzie forces, tending to their own wounded, beginning the grim work of clearing bodies from the stones.
But Moyra saw none of it. Her entire focus had narrowed to Euan’s pale face, to the shallow rise and fall of his chest that said he was still breathing, still fighting, still refusing to give up even while unconscious.
They laid him in their bed—the same bed where they’d made love that morning, where he’d held her while she read fairy tales, where they’d built something real and precious between stolen moments and whispered promises.
Now it was stained with his blood, and Moyra’s hands shook as she helped Brighde strip away ruined armor and clothing.
The wound in his side looked even worse exposed—a ragged tear that had cut deep, that would scar badly if he survived. And his shoulder—saints, his shoulder looked like someone had taken a knife to the old injury, reopening wounds that had barely healed after twenty years.
“Will he be all right?” Moyra asked, though she wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer.
“Eventually.” Brighde’s hands worked, cleaning and stitching, packing and bandaging. “But he’ll be weak fer weeks. And that shoulder—he may never regain full mobility. The damage goes too deep.”
Moyra didn’t care about mobility. Didn’t care about scars or limitations. She just needed him alive. Needed him to wake up and look at her with those grey eyes and tell her everything would be all right.
“I’ll stay with him,” she said. “However long it takes. I’m nae leaving his side.”
“I suspected as much.” Brighde finished the last stitch, covering Euan’s torso with clean bandages. “There. That’s all I can dae fer now. The rest is up tae him.” She stood, gathering her supplies. “I’ll check on him in a few hours. If his fever spikes or the bleeding starts again—”
“I’ll send fer ye immediately.” Moyra had already settled into the chair beside the bed, her hand finding Euan’s and holding tight. “Thank ye, Brighde. Fer everything.”
The healer paused at the door. “He fought well today. Fought like a man defending something worth dying fer. That kind of love—it’s rare, lass. Dinnae waste it.”
She looked at Euan’s pale face, at the bandages wrapped around his torso, at the way his scarred shoulder sat wrong even in unconsciousness. He’d nearly died that day. Had come within inches of bleeding out in her arms while she screamed fer help.
“Ye’re an idiot,” she told him quietly, though tears streamed down her face.
“A brave, stubborn, absolutely infuriating idiot who nearly got himself killed because ye wouldnae let me faither hurt me.” Her thumb traced circles on the back of his hand.
“But ye’re me idiot. And ye’re going tae wake up.
Ye hear me? Ye’re going tae wake up and let me yell at ye properly fer scaring me like this. ”
Euan didn’t answer. Didn’t stir. Just kept breathing in those shallow, labored pulls that said he was fighting even in sleep.
Moyra settled in to wait. However long it took—hours, days, weeks—she’d be there when he woke.
They’d survived the invasion. They’d survived her father’s cruelty. They’d survive this too.
They had to.
Because she’d just found love in the middle of war, and she’d be damned if she let death steal it away now.