Page 134 of The Laird’s Sinful Obsession

It was useless.

He was at the village, a mile away, and she was here, and Torquil was dragging her toward his horse with her blood on her lip and Captain still hanging from his arm.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

He'd gotten halfway across the village when the rider reached him, one of his own men, breathless, eyes wide.

"It's a diversion, me laird. They're at the castle."

He already started turning his horse before the man finished speaking.

The ride seemed long, but he got to the courtyard eventually.

"Alba!"

Lachlann's voice tore across the courtyard, raw and furious.

Then he'd seen Torquil's horse round the bend from the treeline, seen the way Alba was slung across the saddle, and something in his chest had gone cold and sharp and entirely focused.

He sprinted across the open ground, sword already drawn, his boots pounding against stone.

A soldier in Torquil's colors moved to intercept him, some fool who thought he could stop what was coming. Lachlann ducked under the swing without breaking stride, brought his elbow up into the man's jaw, and kept moving.

"Alba!" he shouted again.

Torquil had dismounted by the time Lachlann reached them. He was dragging Alba off the horse, his hand fisted in her hair, and when he saw Lachlann coming, his face shifted. Surprise first, then calculation, then something that might have been satisfaction.

"MacKinnon," Torquil said. "I was hopin' ye'd come."

Lachlann didn't answer. He closed the distance and swung.

Torquil barely got his sword up in time. The clash rang out across the courtyard, steel on steel.

Lachlann pressed forward immediately, not giving him room to set his feet, just allowing him the driving momentum of someone who had stopped caring about strategy and started caring only about results.

"Let her go," Lachlann said, his voice low and deadly calm despite the fury coursing through him.

"She's mine by right," Torquil spat, parrying another strike. "The king's warrant⁠—"

"The king's warrant is worth naethin'." Lachlann struck again, forcing Torquil back a step. "She's me wife. Consummated. Witnessed. Legal in every way that matters."

Torquil's face went white, then red. "Ye're lyin'."

"I dinnae lie." Another strike, harder this time. "Let. Her. Go."

Torquil lunged wildly, rage overtaking whatever skill he'd brought to the fight, and Lachlann sidestepped easily, his sword coming up to knock Torquil's blade aside.

The man was off-balance now, stumbling, his movements desperate rather than controlled.

Behind him, Alba wriggled free of Torquil's loosened grip and scrambled backward.

Captain was there and he positioned himself between Alba and Torquil with his teeth bared and a growl rumbling deep in his chest.

"Good lad," Lachlann said, not taking his eyes off Torquil.

Torquil recovered his footing and came at him again, with a overhead strike that had power behind it but no finesse.

Lachlann parried, stepped inside Torquil's guard, and drove his shoulder into the man's chest, sending him staggering back across the stone courtyard.