Chapter 7 #2
Six men stared them down, still inching their way across the clearing and towards where Oliver and Sorcha stood together. Not wasting a second, Oliver spun around and sliced through the ropes at her wrists.
“Think that she will give you a chance at surviving us?” one of the guards taunted.
“She will run as soon as you turn your back,” another added. “No matter to us. We will kill you and then track her down anyway.”
Ignoring them, Oliver handed her the sword he had been clutching before crossing back to his saddle in three long strides to pull his second sword out from its sheath there. Sorcha came after him, her steps sure and confident as she adjusted to the weight of the weapon in her grip.
“We cannae let them separate us. That is the only way we will survive this,” she explained as she moved closer still.
“Trust me,” Oliver seethed, his eyes locked on the guard whose fist was responsible for the mark on Sorcha’s cheek. “I have no intention of dying in the woods at the hands of these vermin.”
“Those are some big words from a man who is outnumbered with nothing but a wench to help you.”
Oliver smirked. His time with Sorcha had taught him that at the very least, she was a well-trained warrior, a woman who knew her way around a weapon.
In fact, she had been the first person in years to disarm him the way she had last night in her cell.
That Dudley’s guards continued to underestimate her ability could only serve to benefit the odd couple’s chance at survival.
“He is mine.”
Sorcha’s declaration surprised him—both the venom and her intent.
But Oliver couldn’t deny that it sent yet another jolt of pleasure through him.
As much as he wanted to be the one to end the life of a man who had dared lay a hand on any woman, but especially one so wild as Sorcha, he wouldn’t take the satisfaction of being able to defend herself away from Sorcha.
“After you,” he gestured.
The pair stepped forward in tandem, meeting the six guards in the clearing with a determined set to both of their jaws.
They swung their swords high and hard, metal clashing against metal.
Where Sorcha stepped back, Oliver moved further in.
And when she lunged forward to draw first blood from the leader of the guards, Oliver twisted his shoulders to protect her back.
Within a matter of minutes, they were fighting as a unit with an ease that spoke of years of training together that they simply did not have.
Oliver faced his opponent with all the strength and confidence of knowing that the woman at his back was a worthy partner to do battle with. All of their earlier anger and frustration with each other, the quips and the jabs long forgotten.
“She got me!” one of the men shouted in fury. “She actually struck me!”
Raising a defiant eyebrow, Oliver disarmed the man he had been battling and moved onto the next.
In a matter of minutes, they had already worked their way through three of the guards.
Oliver had disarmed one and knocked another unconscious, while Sorcha had wounded the third man with a cut to his leg that would ensure he didn’t get up again anytime soon.
He twisted to his right and then his left, Sorcha acting as his mirror behind him. Pleased with the progress they were making, he allowed himself a small smile that only seemed to incense the rest of Dudley’s men.
“Think that you’ll be able to keep this pace? Think that you’ll be able to avoid Dudley forever? Even if you kill us all, he will only send more men after you. And if that doesn’t work, I can promise that he will come up with his own form of punishment.”
“Are you willing to bet your life on that?” Oliver questioned the head guard with a nonchalance that didn’t match the ire in the downswing of his blade.
The steel glinted off the top of the guard’s sword, and Oliver worked to raise his weapon again while finding his balance once more.
In the split second it took for him to do that, another guard stepped into his peripheral vision, inching towards Sorcha.
Distracted by the threat to her, Oliver lunged to the side at the last second.
“Leave her alone,” he shouted, thrusting his sword into the guard’s chest before pulling it out in a single motion.
“Seems as though Lord Blackwood has developed an attachment to the chit. What a shame she has to die too.”
“I am nae going anywhere,” Sorcha declared, disarming another man, knocking him on the head, forcing him to crumple.
“That may be the case for you, but it won’t be for him. The Marquess will not be with us for much longer.”
It took a moment for the pain to register in Oliver’s mind.
He had been so focused on defending Sorcha, covering her back, making sure she wasn’t wounded any further that he had let himself grow sloppy.
He saw the blood running down his chest before he felt the sting of the wound.
It stretched from the side of his neck nearly down to his navel and was deep enough to already have soaked his shirt through.
Collapsing to his knees, Oliver’s empty hand reached up to cradle the cut on his neck. He could only hope that the cut had missed any of his major veins. That he was still conscious was a promising sign, he supposed.
Sorcha froze at the sight of such a towering, hulking figure being brought to his knees.
The bright red trail running down his tanned skin didn’t bode well for him.
But her lapse lasted for less than the span of two heartbeats.
She refused to give Dudley’s man the satisfaction of seeing them both dead.
“It’s going to take a lot more than that to finish us both off,” she told him, furious.
With three fast steps forward, she was locked in battle with the smug guard, Oliver lying on the ground behind her.
She fought hard not to give the man the chance to get a single inch closer to him.
Their swords clashed and withdrew, clashed and withdrew, warming her muscles into a burn that only served to highlight just how sore she already was.
It was fuel to the fire, reminding her who was responsible for the bruises that littered her skin.
“Think you have what it takes to fight me off?” the guard taunted.
“Considering ye nay longer have yer cronies to hide behind, aye. I think ye better start saying yer prayers.”
Sorcha didn’t bother wasting any more of her focus taunting the man. She stepped to the left and lunged to the right, burying her sword in the man’s throat. She pushed the weapon in further, not stopping until the hilt rested against his skin. His eyes were wide with shock and fear.
“I told ye nae to lay yer hands on me,” she whispered furiously to the dying man.
Letting go of the sword completely, she watched as he too fell to the ground. Only when his chest stopped moving did she turn to her captor, hesitation marking her movement.
Her eyes darted between Lord Blackwood, his shirt turned a shocking shade of red, his face too pale for comfort, and the horse that still waited for his master. She could take the horse and run, leave Lord Blackwood and all of Dudley’s men behind.
If she moved fast enough, there was even a chance that she would be able to make it back to the Kincaid Castle in one piece. This was her chance at freedom, even if it cost her the lives of seven men. This was her chance to return home.