What had he missed?
* * *
Only a few moments ago...
He watched from the tent at the revelry that was happening near the center of the camp, casually sipping on the battered flask that he held in his hand. Everything was ready and every man was in place, waiting for the signal that would wreak havoc on the happy little display of solidarity between the clans.
It sickened him. The clans were not meant to be happy together. They were meant to fight in battles against each other, to bring bloodshed and war to all borders of Scotland. He had listened to the talks of peace, watched as shake after shake solidified another alliance.
Meaning that Scots like him, and his band of thieves, would be forced out of their homes for defying the treaties. More men would find themselves lost, unable to swing their sword in fear that they would be cast out.
He couldn’t allow that.
Tucking his flask back into his sporran, he walked back into the tent, rifling through his pack for an item that he had carried with him all this time. Tonight, he might die on this battlefield, but it would be for the greater good of Scotland. He too had believed the talks once before, and they had brought him nothing but heartache.
Finding the scrap of ribbon, he brought it to his unshaven cheek, the material threadbare from his numerous touching. Still, if he closed his eyes, he could smell her sweet perfume on it, the color the same as her eyes had been.
“I’m doing this for ye, love,” he whispered, wrapping the ribbon around his palm. “I’m doing this because ye never saw mah potential.”
She hadn’t. She had seen him as an object that she could just throw away once she was done, have his entire clan turn their backs on him because of her lies.
She had paid, and all of Scotland would as well. These clans would war against each other until the only ones left were those that had risen above it all—the only ones that had taken their own loss and turned it into revenge like he had.
Sighing, he tied the ribbon to his wrist, watching the ends flutter in the slight night breeze. Outside, the music carried on, the laughter filling the air. Soon that laughter would turn into screams and the music into the sound of battle as it raged through the campsite. He would watch lairds fall, their own bodies twitching from the blows that were dealt.
He would watch other warriors fight with his own men and meet their deaths quickly.
He would watch the great clans of Scotland be left decimated when their leaders fell to their own deaths, leaving multiple seats open for others to step in, others that would want vengeance against an enemy that would be misguided. They would think that those they had made alliances with would be the cause of this bloodshed.
Instead, it would be nothing more than a man who wanted vengeance himself and found the best way to cause the destruction that had been brought upon him in his own life.
It would be his legacy, this great battle he would thrust Scotland into.
Grinning, he picked up his sword, the steel glinting in the low light of the tent. Instead of sheathing it, he held it in his hand as he walked to the flap and pushed it aside, stepping out into the cool night.
And then he let it fall to the ground.
17
Breta shook her head to clear it of the ringing, feeling the dirt under her hands as she did so. What had happened? One moment she was arguing with Will, and the next...
Looking around, Breta screamed as she was watching the horror and fire unfold in front of her eyes, covering her head as debris rained down all around her.
We are under attack!
Pushing herself to her feet, Breta got her first real view of the destruction around her. There were tents on fire, people fighting while others were lying in the dirt, gone forever.
She muffled a gasp as she saw Katherine in the dirt and hurried over to the laird. “Katherine!” she screamed, shaking the older woman’s shoulders.
The woman moaned and her eyes fluttered open, focusing on Breta’s face. “Breta? Wot’s happening?”
“We are under attack!” Breta cried, helping her to a seated position. She had some nasty cuts on her face, but Breta couldn’t see any other obvious injuries on the laird.
Katherine grabbed her arms, her eyes wide. “Cameron. Where is mah husband?”
“I’m right here.”
Breta turned to see the warrior kneeling beside his wife, the relief on his face palpable.
“Cameron!” Katherine cried out, falling into his arms. Breta stood and let the couple have their moment, her eyes scanning the crowd for another familiar face.
Where is he?
“Well, wot do we have here?”
Breta turned to see a man standing a few feet from her, his sword coated with blood and a leering grin on his face. It was clear to her at that moment that Will wasn’t her immediate concern.
No, her immediate concern was to survive.
Reaching into the pocket of her skirt, Breta pulled out the dagger she had stored there, holding it firmly in her hand.
“Leave me be,” she told him, narrowing her gaze.
He laughed, not seeing her as a threat. “Och, ye will do nicely then. Come, lass, show me wot ye have.”
That was going to be his first mistake. Instead of charging him, Breta allowed her hand to tremble, clouding her gaze with false fear. “Nay!” she cried out. “Dinnae hurt me!”
He advanced on her, falling for her ruse. “I’m not going tae hurt ye...badly.”
Once he was close enough, she lunged with her dagger and felt it bury into his stomach. “Nay, ye aren’t.”
Breta heard his start of surprise but she was already pulling out the dagger and running away before he could hit the ground, weaving past the others fighting.
One down.
More than once, she stumbled on a prone body in her path, not bothering to look to see if they were friend or foe. They were gone, but she was still alive for now.
She had to remain that way.
“Mah lady!”
Breta turned to find one of her father’s warriors striding toward her. “Ye need tae head tae the keep!” he called out, holding his sword aloft. “Ye need tae get tae safety!”
“Where is mah da?” she asked instead. She had to ensure that he was safe and unharmed.
He shook his head before an attacker launched himself at the warrior. Breta was already rushing toward the two men on the ground, attempting to find an opening that she could use her dagger.
When she found one, she buried it between the man’s shoulder blades, bile rising in her throat as she felt the blade slide into his body.
The warrior kicked the dead man aside and stood, his eyes wide. “Ye havenae forgotten.”
She shook her head, and he retrieved her dagger, even wiping it on his tunic before handing it to her.
“Good,” he stated, clearing his throat. “Get tae the keep, Breta.”
Breta looked up at the warrior that had a hand in her training, silently whispering a prayer of protection for him and the rest of her father’s men.
“I’ve got tae find mah da,” she told him before darting away, hearing his roar of disapproval. There had been a handful of warriors that had been involved in her training, not just with the bow but also with the dagger, and then a short sword that she could wield easily. They had trained her alongside them, in secret from her parents.
Not even Ferra knew the entire extent of her training.
They had been hesitant at first to do so, but Breta hadn’t relented. Now it seemed that the training was paying off. She could defend herself.
Another attacker tried to grab her, and she stabbed at his arm until he yelped and let her go, causing her to run into the crowd of fighters to get away. Stay alive at all costs, they had told her.
Breta was willing to do both in order to see a new day.
While Ferra would be attending to the dead or dying, Breta would be defending their clan, ensuring that they all saw another day.
A strong arm wrapped around her waist. She fought against it, the foul stench of an unwashed body pressing to her back.
“Wot do we have here?” a man said, his breath blowing hotly against her ear.
“Let me go!” she screamed, pulling at his arm desperately.
He laughed harshly and started to drag her away; she couldn’t allow it. “Ye are a feisty one,” he said as her feet caught on a prone body in the dirt, her heels scraping down the dead man’s back. Her stomach lurched and she forced the bile back from her throat. Now was not the time to forget everything she knew.
She drove her foot backward, kicking hard like a mule would, and he gasped in surprise, his arm loosening just enough for her to push out of his grip. Turning, she wasted no time launching at him, her dagger finding the side of his neck. He tried to push her away, grasping at her dagger, and Breta backed up, knowing the moment he removed it, he would bleed out.
“Ye bitch!” he grunted, finally reaching the hilt of the dagger and yanking hard. Once his blood started to pour over his hands, he realized what he had done and desperately tried to stop the flow, but it was far too late.
He fell a moment later and she retrieved her dagger, covered in the man’s blood and staining her own hands.
She had just killed another person.
Turning, she stopped in her tracks as she saw someone watching her in the midst of the battle, his own sword coated with blood.
It was the look of surprise on his face that caught her attention first.
“Da?” she cried out, hurrying toward him.
He grasped her hard with one hand. “Breta! Mah lass, I thought ye were dead.”
“Nay!” she cried, wanting nothing more than to curl up against his chest and block out all the destruction that was around them.
He pulled back to look in her face. “Where did ye learn tae fight like that?”
Now was not the time to go into the specifics. “Are ye hurt?” she asked instead, her hands roaming over him. He was coated with blood, much like she was.
“Nay, nay,” he said, batting her hands away. “Ye need tae go tae the keep.”
She shook her head, and his jaw clenched. “Listen tae mah,” he continued, grasping her chin with his hand. “Go tae the keep, Breta. This no place for ye tae be, and it will make me fight better knowing ye are safe.”
His words broke her resolve. She couldn’t have him worried about her on the battlefield. Given the way it was raging around them, it was not going to stop anytime soon.
“Please,” he begged, concern reflecting in his gaze. “I dinnae need ye here. Dinnae make me worry.”
“As you wish,” she finally said, wrapping her arm around his waist and holding him tightly. “I’ll go.”
He embraced her briefly before pressing his lips to her forehead and moving back into the fray. Breta watched him go and begged the gods to protect him as she made her own way toward the edge of the camp, where she would follow the path to the keep. She didn’t want to leave, but if it meant her father could have peace knowing she was safe, then that would be what she did.
Breta dodged a pair of fighting Scots as she raced past, her boots slipping in the dirt now stained with blood. It was a horrid scene. She swallowed past the bile that threatened once more, knowing that once the fighting stopped, there would be a great deal of mourning to be had.
Just as she spied the edge of the camp that would lead her to the keep, Breta caught a flash of a familiar face a few feet away, her heart slamming against her rib cage as she realized who it was.
Will.
He was fighting against an attacker that was taller than he, blocking each sword blow with his own. From her vantage point, she could see the strain on his bloodstained face, the way his arms trembled under the blow.
She couldn’t let him be killed.
As she started toward the pair, Will pushed back with a well-placed boot to the man’s chest, sending him a few feet back. He was gaining the upper hand.
But the warrior pulled out a dagger, the steel flashing in the burning fires. Fear climbed into Breta’s throat as she realized Will hadn’t seen it. He was too focused on the sword.
Picking up her skirts, she raced toward them, hearing Will’s start of surprise as she barreled into the attacker, catching him off guard. They fell to the ground and Breta felt the faintest prick of something sharp to her left side, followed by the burn of pain that spread across her stomach.
“Breta!” Will shouted as she grappled with the warrior, moving just in time to avoid the glancing blow of the hilt of his sword.
Strong hands picked her up and put her aside. Breta watched with a gasp as Will moved in and drove his sword into the man’s chest, ensuring that he wouldn’t rise again.
When he turned back to her, she gave him a weak smile. “I couldnae let him kill ye.”
“Ye stubborn fool!” he raged, closing the distance between them. “Wot were ye thinking?”
The pain across her stomach grew and she cried out, her knees buckling just as Will reached her. “Oh, bloody hell!” Will gasped as he caught her, lowering her to the ground slowly. “Ye’re hit. Where?”
“Mah stomach,” she groaned as his hand found the wound on her left side. She was dying. She knew it. A blow to the stomach was not something anyone survived. All the regrets of her life flooded her mind, but there was one she wouldn’t regret, and he was peering over her anxiously, stark fear on his face.
Reaching up with a bloodied hand, she cupped his cheek. “I love ye,” she whispered. “I dinnae know how or why, but I do.”
“Nay,” he said, holding his hand tightly to her side. “Dinnae say that, Breta. Ye aren’t going tae leave me so soon.”
But the darkness started to pool in the back of her mind, and she forced a small smile, etching his handsome face into her memory to take with her to the great beyond after this life. She had saved his life and because of her, he would go on doing what he loved to do.
That was all that mattered to her now.
“Goodbye, Will...”
18
Breta’s eyes fluttered closed and her hand fell from his face, leaving behind an imprint of her blood on his skin.
“Nay,” he said hoarsely, reaching for her neck. He couldn’t lose her now.
A faint pulse pounded against his fingers, and he released a shaky breath, wasting no time gathering her into his arms and standing. She had saved his life. A warrior who wanted nothing in his life until she had come into it.
He had tried to push her away, said things to her that he wanted to take back now. “Hold on,” he told her, striding through the camp at a clip pace. He didn’t care about the fighting now, only wanting to get her somewhere where her life could be saved.
She was all that mattered.
Will walked out of the perimeter of the camp, finding both Cameron and Trevor walking out at the same time. “Wot happened?” Trevor asked immediately, his face drawing pale as he saw who Will had in his arms. “Breta?”
“She saved mah life,” Will said quietly.
Trevor’s held out his arms. “Let me have her.”
“Nay,” Will responded, holding her closer to his chest. “She’s alive. I need tae get her tae the keep.”
“Come then,” Cameron said, his own face pale as he stared down at the lass. “Let them fight it out for now. We will send the warriors from the village to plow through whoever is left.”
The men started to walk toward the keep. Will clenched his jaw tightly as he peered down at Breta’s pale face, wondering if the gods would bless him with a prayer for her life. She was far better than he was, a woman who had told him that she loved him with her last words.
She didn’t care about herself; she cared about him. But it wasn’t something he could process right now.
Cameron and Trevor both barked out orders to the warriors they encountered, but Will kept walking, his arms growing heavy from carrying her so far. It was too late to get a hor
se to ride the rest of the way, but he would crawl on his hands and knees to the keep if it meant getting Breta there.
He couldn’t let her die. Not now.
Finally, he spied the closed gates of the keep. “Open up!” he yelled to the guards on top of the wall. “Damn ye, open the doors!”
Luckily, they recognized him, and the gates creaked open just enough for the men to slide through. The courtyard was chaos, with injured everywhere, littering the ground. The keep’s doors were thrown open as healers hurried in and out, tending to the injured.
“Cameron?”
Will watched as Katherine stood from one of the men she was tending to and threw herself into her husband’s waiting arms, her sobs muffled by his shirt.
“I told ye I would come back tae ye,” he said softly, burying his face in her hair.
“Trevor?”
“Garia,” Trevor said in a gutted voice as she approached him. “’Tis Breta.”
Her eyes flew to the woman that Will held carefully in his arms, her screams likely heard far outside the keep’s walls. “She’s still alive,” he told her, grasping her arms as she tried to reach her sister. “We need tae get her tae a healer.”
Garia pulled herself together and led the way into the keep, where numerous pallets lined the great hall, awaiting those that would seek attention. It seemed most hadn’t gotten past the courtyard, and Will’s stomach twisted at the sheer amount of loss they would experience on this night. “Here,” Garia said quickly, throwing back a blanket on a pallet near the fire. “Put her here for now.”
Will did as she asked, laying Breta on the pallet carefully, his hand still pressed to her side. “’Tis a side wound,” he said, his voice laced with emotion. “She needs...” He couldn’t finish his words. He didn’t know what she needed.
“Stand aside, Will,” one of the healers stated as she knelt beside him. “I have her.”
Will found it hard to pull his hand away from her blood-soaked dress, but he knew he had to in order for them to help Breta. He stepped back, listening to Garia’s soft cries as she pressed her face into her husband’s chest.
Highlander’s Phantom Lass: A Steamy Scottish Medieval Historical Romance Page 11