Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
Vrogul
My Kteer roared its fury in my chest, urging me onward—kill blood maim kill KILL—until my world had narrowed to the next enemy, the next threat.
I fought my way toward the rest of my warriors who stood with their backs to the loch, no escape…none intended. If we couldn’t push back the invaders from the loch’s shores, then our females and kitlings would be vulnerable.
Both of my brothers were there—Sevren must have returned while I was distracted by my Mating Heat—and Trevik and Parnak, and even Auld Garran.
There were others lying on the ground, others I didn’t allow myself to look at too closely, lest they turned out to be friends or cousins.
‘Twas bad enough fighting an enemy who wore our colors, enemies who might be distant relatives.
Enemies who were only here because Callor didn’t think we were moving fast enough with the ore we owed him.
There was no way he could know about my plans to break away from the mainland Battleborn; we had only just made the decision. Nay, this was about teaching us—and his other septs—a lesson.
A lesson we couldn’t afford to lose.
And so I fought, cutting down males who might have otherwise been my friends, males I might have dined and drank with when I visited Callor, because of his greediness. I tried not to kill, despite my Kteer’s urging, but I didn’t give that order.
My warriors would have to protect themselves and their families the best they could.
My focus was on the battle, and my Kteer’s instincts kept me alive more than once…but before long, I felt a tug of a different kind.
It didn’t take me long to identify it.
Rowena.
She hadn’t obeyed my order to get to safety and I wasn’t completely surprised. In fact, she was coming closer, and now my fury was tinged with fear. My Mate was joining me in battle, and although I knew she was capable, I was still terrified for her.
The only way my death today would be acceptable was if she lived. Lived to protect our people.
And then she was there.
Rowena came through the press of bodies like something primal and purposeful, both blades out, blood on her hands I prayed wasn’t hers, and where her braid had been there was naught but ragged, jaw-length ends. Something in my chest seized so hard I nearly missed the blade coming at my left side.
Nearly.
I turned it aside and looked at her again. She met my eyes for exactly one breath—and then she stepped past me and took the warrior coming at my unguarded back as casually as if she’d been fighting at my side for years.
Her back found mine.
I had no words. I wasn’t certain I had breath to speak. So I did the only thing that made sense.
I trusted her.
I stopped watching my left side and gave it to her entirely and felt her do the same.
She was smaller, faster, built for close quarters and quick decisions, and I felt her working—the way she redirected rather than blocked, the way she used an opponent’s size against them, the way she never stood still long enough to be targeted properly.
She was magnificent.
Pride swelled in my chest, pride which had naught to do with my Kteer and everything to do with her. I loved her and I would die at her side protecting our people.
She was a Battleborn of Islay, and we were blessed by the gods below to have her!
When she stepped, I stepped with her. When she dropped, I moved over her without looking down, already driving back the warrior she’d evaded.
She was back on her feet before I finished the thought.
We traded the space between us back and forth like a conversation, tightening and expanding as the fight demanded, and I found the dizzying joy of having my Mate at my back.
Not someone to protect.
Someone to fight with.
We cleared the enemies around us, and without speaking, stepped up to engage those who were harassing Trevik, taking them down as well. Aye, we were a force to be reckoned with, but ‘twas hopeless, because the enemy kept coming.
Callor had sent enough men to make certain of the outcome, and I could feel the truth of it as my arms began to burn. The newly cleared space around us was shrinking. My warriors were good—the best—but they were being overrun.
One by one, my warriors were cut down or pulled away by their opponents, until ‘twas just the two of us—my Mate and I—defending this section of the shore. My heart wept for our losses, our vanished future, even as I hardened it to do what must be done.
I pressed my back against Rowena’s and held my ground and thought, aye, if this is where it ends, at least we end it together.
Then the press of bodies opened, and there he was.
Dallin—Callor’s grandson—moved through his own men with the unhurried confidence of someone who had never once doubted the outcome of aught in his life.
He was young, aye, but I felt the danger of him immediately—not the wild danger of an angry male, but the precise, patient danger of one who’d been trained by the best his grandfather’s coin could buy.
Had he even had time to return to Callor to report on his visit?
Or had he planned this attack all along, returning to the mainland only long enough to gather this force?
Had we offered hospitality to the male who intended our doom?
‘Twould be a mistake to underestimate him. His footwork was clean, his guard tight. He took his time looking at the two of us, and I saw the calculation in his eyes.
Then his gaze settled on Rowena.
And he smiled.
He came at her deliberately and I understood the strategy even as it enraged me.
Break my focus, break my footing, and the rest would be simple.
I surged forward to intercept, but two of his men stepped in to occupy me—not to fight me seriously, just to hold me—and I had to watch from mere feet away as Dallin engaged my Mate.
He was better than her.
I had to accept that truth even as it turned my blood cold.
Not by much, though. She was fast and clever, and she fought with a ferocity that made him work for every inch. Even as I fought off my attackers, I saw her read him, saw her try two feints that would have worked on any of my warriors, and saw him anticipate both.
He had longer reach, a heavier blade, and none of the desperation that was making her movements just slightly less precise than they ought to be.
When he drove her blade wide and hit her shoulder with his shield—not the edge, the flat, but hard enough—I heard the impact from where I stood.
She went down. And the sound that came out of my mouth was no word, but a roar.
I stopped fighting cleanly.
I stopped fighting carefully.
I stopped worrying about my shoulder or my footing or the two men still trying to occupy me, and I put one of them down with a blow that I would feel in my arm for a week, stepped over him, and threw myself at Dallin with the full weight of my fury.
My Mate was down, but when she rolled out of the way, I felt myself suck in a breath and hadn’t realized how long it had been since I’d inhaled. I supposed I’d stopped breathing after seeing her fall, but she was alive.
I reminded my Kteer of that. Reminded myself to focus on Dallin, the leader of these warriors, who now crossed blades with me.
He was good. He met my charge without flinching and we hammered at each other—his precision against my power—and I knew he was working my right shoulder deliberately, hunting the weakness there. He found it twice, but I barely noticed.
Because behind him, I could see Rowena getting up.
She didn’t come back in swinging. That was what told me she was extraordinary. Any other warrior—any other moment—would have come back in with everything they had and bled because of it.
Instead, she went still. She stood just outside Dallin’s periphery and she watched him, her eyes tracking his patterns, and I understood what she was doing even from inside the fight.
So, I gave her what she needed.
I pushed Dallin harder, more aggressively than was wise, forcing him to commit to that overhead strike he favored—the big powerful blow that opened everything up for a half-second at the peak of the raise.
I’d noticed it too, by now. I let him land it.
I took it on my cross guard and felt my knees buckle with the force of it, and in the same instant I heard the sharp crack of Rowena’s sword connecting with the inside of his wrist.
Dallin’s grip spasmed and the sword’s tip dropped.
I came back up off my knees and hit him like a wall. Both hands. The full weight of me, injured shoulder and exhaustion and every drop of fury I had left driving him back and back until his legs went out and he hit the ground hard enough to bounce.
My blade was at his throat before he stopped moving.
Then Rowena’s sword joined mine, the smaller tip edged under Dallin’s ear, prepared to drive into the side of his neck if I faltered. I had no intention of faltering. We’d taken down the leader of our enemies without killing him.
Without ensuring more vengeance from Callor.
“Yield,” I rasped, in a voice weary and heartsick.
Dallin’s eyes went to Rowena and saw the moment he understood that killing me wouldn’t end this. That there would still be her.
He let his hands fall open, allowed his sword to fall to the dirt.
“I yield,” he said.
No joy went through me at the words, and my Kteer didn’t allow me to rest in victory. Instead, I threw my head back and roared.
“Battleborn! Battleborn!”
Around us, the sounds of battle slowly faded as the individual fights slowed, each warrior confused as to which clan I was shouting for. The perils of cousins fighting cousins, I supposed.
As more of Dallin’s warriors realized he’d been beaten and was in danger, more battleaxes hit the ground, more swords were sheathed. None of them wanted to be responsible for the death of Callor’s grandson…or mayhap he didn’t engender as much respect as he’d hoped.
‘Twas over.