Each step was deliberate, as though the stones themselves waited to see which laird would claim them. Around the edges of the courtyard, Sinclair’s soldiers had driven Baird’s men back from the gates, forcing them into brutal, grinding combat among the rubble.
Ewan Sinclair shifted his stance, waiting with his blade lifted and ready.
That was when Baird noticed two of Sinclair’s soldiers dragging Davina forward. The men he had assigned to keep her safe, lay dead on the ground. Her wrists were held by the two ruffians at her sides. She stumbled once as they dragged her to Sinclair, but she caught herself before she fell.
“So,” Sinclair said, circling, “Kincaid finally shows himself now that I have something he wants.”
“Davina!” Baird shouted her name,
“I dinnae ken yet,” Sinclair mused, and his voice carried in the wind like deadly arrows, “but I might take yer wife fer me own when she becomes a widow.”
Baird did not answer or slow as he advanced. He had had enough of his enemies pressing knives to Davina’s neck. His entire mind glowed red as he kept rushing, determined to end everything and everyone who stood in the way of the woman he loved.
“Ye should have stayed on yer own land!” he roared.
Sinclair laughed and struck.
Steel met steel in a shower of sparks. The impact jarred Baird’s arms clear to the shoulder, but he held, turning the blow aside and answering with a cut meant to test, not finish. Sinclair parried cleanly, quick as a snake.
“Still hiding behind walls?” Sinclair taunted, lunging again. “Or have ye learned tae fight like a man at last?”
Baird drove forward, forcing Sinclair back a step, and away from Davina, if only a little. “I learned tae protect what’s mine!”
Their blades rang again. They were both fast and ferocious, each strike precise and unforgiving. Sinclair fought with ruthless economy. His every movement seemed honed for killing. Bairdmatched him blow for blow, anger lending strength but not haste.
“Ye sent a knife tae me wife,” Baird said through clenched teeth as he blocked a savage downward strike.
Sinclair’s cruel smile flashed. “A pity it failed.”
Davina stiffened as the soldiers tightened their grip on her arms. Baird’s vision narrowed. He shoved Sinclair back with his shoulder, swinging hard. Sinclair barely caught it.
“Ye mistake mercy fer weakness,” Sinclair said, breath quickening at last. “I have none.”
“Nor dae I,” Baird replied.
They clashed again, their blades scraping and locked so close Baird could smell iron and sweat on the man. Sinclair twisted free and slashed, grazing Baird’s arm. Pain flared, hot and bright. Baird welcomed it. It woke him up. It reminded him what mattered, what he needed to protect.
“Every step ye took toward this keep,” Baird said, pressing forward, “was a step too far.”
Sinclair snarled and attacked in earnest now, raining blows meant to overwhelm. Baird yielded ground only to take it back, parrying, countering and always angling the fight away from where Davina stood captured.
“Ye think this ends me?” Sinclair spat. “There will always be another.”
Baird’s sword flashed, driving Sinclair back again. “Then let them come,” he said without remorse. “They’ll find what ye did.”
As they continued to fight, with neither of them willing to yield, Sinclair’s breathing had changed. Baird heard it between clashes. He heard the sharp edge creeping in, the rhythm breaking. He felt it, too, in the way Sinclair began to give ground not by design but by necessity.
Sinclair knew it as well.
“Ye’re slower than ye were,” Sinclair sneered, circling wide, buying time. “Age catching up, Kincaid?”
Baird did not answer. He didn’t want to waste breath and strength on retorts. Instead, he pressed forward, forcing Sinclair back toward the shattered edge of the courtyard where debris lay scattered and footing was treacherous.
Sinclair’s eyes flicked past Baird, at Davina. Baird saw it a heartbeat too late.
A fallen dagger lay half-hidden beneath a broken shield. As Baird struck, Sinclair twisted aside not to parry, but to kick the dagger up into his free hand. In the same motion, he feinted high with his sword.
Baird blocked on instinct, and the dagger came low. Pain exploded along his ribs. It made his vision all white, stealing the very breath from his lungs. Sinclair sliced the blade across Baird’s sides. Baird staggered back a step, his teeth gritting hard enough to creak.
