Every nerve in her body seemed fixed upon listening. More than once she thought she heard Duncan’s name in the wind, only to realize it was no more than her own desperate heart putting sound to hope.
Then all at once, the night changed. It began so subtly she almost thought she had imagined it. There was a strange pause in the camp’s rhythm, as if something unseen had passed along its edge and disturbed the air itself. One of the horses whickered sharply. A man outside muttered something she could not catch. Another answered with irritation.
Then came a cry, and Elaina jerked upright. The next instant the camp erupted. Shouting burst from every side at once. The horses screamed and reared against their tethers. She heard the unmistakable ring of steel striking steel, followed by a crash so violent it seemed one of the outer fire pits had been kicked apart.Men were yelling now. The whole clearing had gone from uneasy stillness to chaos in the space of a single breath.
Her own heart leapt so fiercely she thought it might stop.
Duncan… he came fer me.
The thought flashed through her with such blinding force that for a moment it chased out every other feeling. She twisted toward the opening in the tent, straining against the rope at her wrists until it burned her skin.
Through the slit in the canvas, she saw movement everywhere. Dark figures were storming the camp from the trees, with the gleam of drawn blades in the firelight. Duncan’s men had fallen upon them with terrible precision. What had seemed a secure hiding place only moments before was now a trap.
The guards nearest her tent rushed forward in alarm, one nearly stumbling as he dragged his sword free. Another shouted that they were surrounded. A third, still struggling with the fastening of his belt, was struck from behind before he had properly turned.
Elaina could not see Duncan, but she knew it was his work. She recognized his colors and there was too much order in the attack for it to be anyone else. Mackenzie’s men had been caught utterly unready, assailed from several sides at once. It was no wild charge born of rage, but a strike planned with cold purpose and executed without waste.
She pressed closer to the opening, heedless of the pain in her bound wrists. Whatever happened next, however near death had seemed only moments before, Duncan had come for her and Lachlan MacKenzie, who had spoken so confidently of killing her and destroying all she loved, now stood in the middle of his own camp with fury on his face and battle all around him.
CHAPTER FORTY
Duncan did not remain with the main force. The instant the attack started and his men swept into the camp from the trees, he left the broader work of battle to those he trusted and drove forward with only one purpose before him. Others would secure the perimeter, cut down MacKenzie’s men, and hold the line against escape.
He had not come for victory alone. He had come for Elaina.
The camp was a confusion of firelight, smoke, and steel. Men shouted in alarm, some half-armed, and some scarcely awake, all thrown into disorder by the sudden violence of the assault. Duncan moved through it with a terrible clarity of mind, seeing only what was necessary and nothing beyond it.
A man rushed him from the left. Duncan struck once and did not look back to see him fall. Another caught at his sleeve in passing, and he drove him away with the hilt of his sword and kept moving. Canvas snapped in the night wind, horses whinnied andtore at their tethers. Sparks whirled upward into the blackness above like burning insects.
Still, he went on. He had already marked the place where she was most likely held: the larger tent set slightly apart, guarded more heavily than the rest, close enough to MacKenzie’s own station to satisfy a captor’s vanity.
Every instinct in him fixed upon it now. He crossed the clearing with the swiftness of a man to whom every heartbeat was an injury until he had his beloved safely in his arms.
“Elaina!” he called once, though whether aloud or only in his own mind he scarcely knew.
Then he saw MacKenzie. The man had been shouting orders from near the fire, furious at the collapse of his camp, but in the next instant Duncan watched him understand. The older man’s head turned sharply toward the tent. A dreadful calculation passed across his face. If he could not hold the camp, he would at least finish what he had begun.
He was going back for her. The realization made Duncan’s blood run cold.
“MacKenzie!” he roared, but whether he heard him or merely chose not to answer, he did not stop.
He turned and strode toward the tent with murder in his purpose, cutting down one of his own panicked men whostumbled across his path. For one sickening instant, Duncan saw the whole thing as if already done: the canvas thrown back, Elaina defenseless, McKenzie’s hand at her throat or steel at her breast, her life ended in the final spite of a beaten man.
Nay.
The word was not spoken. It tore through him like a vow.
He ran harder. A guard came between them, rushing to shield his laird’s advance. Duncan met him with such force that the clash rang above the rest of the fighting. The man struck, wild with fear, and Duncan answered with a blow so brutal it sent him reeling sideways into the dirt. He did not pause. Another man seized at him from behind, and Duncan drove an elbow back into his face, then wrenched free and lunged onward.
The tent was only yards away now, but MacKenzie reached it first. He tore back the flap and disappeared inside. Duncan followed at once.
The transition from firelit chaos to the close darkness within was almost blinding. The tent smelled of damp wool, smoke, and fear. For the briefest instant, all was shadow and movement, then his eyes found her. Elaina was there, bound upright to a rough support driven into the ground, pale in the wavering light.
And MacKenzie was turning toward her. He had already drawn his blade. There was no hesitation in him now, no speech, no threat. The camp outside was lost, and this would be his last act of vengeance.
Duncan reached them in the same instant. He stepped between them just as MacKenzie struck. The blow came hard and low, meant to kill quickly. Duncan caught it on his own blade with a force that jarred up through his arm and into his shoulder. The sound of it was sharp enough to seem almost unbearable.
MacKenzie cursed, trying to force him back, but Duncan held. Behind him, he could hear Elaina’s breath catch.
