“I daenae think the earth is angry with me that much.Yet.”
Neil scoffed. “Maybe the earth isnae ready to catch up with ye.”
“Ye are fighting like a man possessed, Neil,” Lachlan observed, crossing his arms. “Tell me, Braither, have ye had any action in the past five years?”
Neil frowned at first, but the confusion fizzled out the moment the meaning hit him.
“Nay,” he bit out, without slowing down.
A guard tried to strike him again, but he dodged the blow at the last minute with the flat of his sword.
“Saints.” Lachlan whistled low. “God help the poor lass when ye finally decide to bed her.”
Neil cut a look at him. “This isnae about a woman.”
“Nay?” Lachlan drawled. “So why have ye nae settled things with yer wife?”
Neil’s blade stopped at the pell and held. He felt the yard lean a little to hear. “Because I have nay need for heirs and nay time for distractions.”
Lachlan arched an eyebrow. “Is that what we call a wife these days?”
“Aye,” Neil said.
“Ye sound sharp,” Lachlan noted. “And a little wrong. Have the years in captivity screwed with yer brain as well?”
Neil shot his brother a cold glare. “Do ye want the next bout?”
“Ye ken what? Perhaps ye’re right. Perhaps the earth has caught up with me today. I do,” Lachlan said.
“Ye do?”
“Aye. Someone needs to knock some sense into ye.”
Neil watched his brother draw his sword, and they touched blades.
Lachlan moved like a man who had slept and eaten well for five years. Neil moved like a man who had not. His swings felt more desperate, more dependent on everything except strength. Speed carried him, but control kept him from breaking the brother who had come to test him.
“Ye are fighting with pain,” Lachlan muttered. “Ye do realize ye daenae have to do that anymore.”
“Keep yer eyes on the point,” Neil shot back.
They traded cuts and binds. Lachlan caught his shoulder once. Neil swallowed the pain and sent him wide with a wrist cut that earned him a grunt.
“Still cruel with the small work,” Lachlan chuckled, panting.
“Cruelty frees captured men,” Neil said.
They broke apart.
Neil lowered his blade and turned to the guards. “Next.”
No one moved at first. Then a tall guard with a scar on his cheek lifted his sword and charged forward. Neil knocked him down in three clean exchanges. Steel met steel, hilt met wrist, and the floor met his back.
Murmurs rippled through the yard.
“The Wolf has returned stronger.”
“He fights like he never ate a meal in peace.”
