Beauty and the Beastly Highlander by Kenna Kendrick
Chapter Twelve
Though his speeches at all the villages they had visited had gone unexpectedly well, Finley wasn’t anywhere near done, and he knew that well. The last village, the closest to the castle, was also the biggest one, and Finley knew that he had his work cut out for him. The people there were wary of him and his promises, and he was fully prepared to be met with a lot of resistance.
But at that moment, he allowed himself to feel optimistic for the first time in years. The villagers had not only spoken to him after his speech, but some of them even had nice things to say about what he had promised them. Some even seemed surprised by how human he looked, how not-beastly.
As he and his men settled there for the night, he didn’t even try to stop them from chatting excitedly about what they had seen. They seemed to share his optimism, and he could only hope that he wouldn’t end up disappointing them.
Etna’s speech has done its work. I willna disappoint them because na one can resist the pull of her words.
Finley had to admit that it had been a clever move on Lochlan’s part, convincing him to have Etna writing his speeches. No matter how many speeches he could write himself, none of them would compare to hers.
But what Finley liked most about Etna’s speech was that she hadn’t tried to sugar-coat the situation with the brigands. She hadn’t tried to make him seem like he could do no wrong, nor had she tried to convince the villagers that their assumptions were incorrect. She had simply given them the facts, and she had written them in such a way that no one could do anything but listen.
And Finley knew that once he had their attention, he also had their respect.
After spending the entire day talking to the villagers, he looked forward to getting some rest, even though it was still early. His eyes were heavy, and so were his limbs, weighed down by exhaustion and the desire to sleep.
The moment he closed his eyes, his mind conjured an image of Etna, beautiful, ethereal as she always was. He remembered the softness of her skin, the warmth of her body against his own, and his hands ached to touch her again.
It had been a long time since his body had reacted to a woman in such a way, but the mere thought of Etna aroused him, and a part of him wished that he were back at the castle, with her in his bed. He wanted to make her his, to claim her.
And then, just as he was about to fall asleep to the thoughts of Etna, he heard the unmistakable sound of screams.
Rushing to the window along with the rest of his men, Finley looked down and saw a dozen or so men rushing in on horses, their swords already drawn. In the darkness, he could only see them under the light of their torches, the torches that they used to set fire to the piles of hay, the wood, the houses.
“Ambush!” Finley shouted as his men rushed to grab their swords. “Dinna let them do more harm!”
His men immediately fell into formation, following his command and surrounding him. Finley led them out of the building and straight to the brigands, his war cry their only warning. He refused to let his men do all the fighting, even though it had been a while since he had last used a sword.
Finley counted fifteen brigands. Twelve to their eight. Their odds weren’t that bad, not considering that his men were not just a group of thugs but rather well-trained soldiers.
Na. Na eight.
“Where’s Lochlan?” he shouted, but there was no answer from any of his men.
The fight erupted around him in seconds, the air filling with the sounds of iron against iron as the swords clanged and collided. He saw one of them fighting two men at the same time, and just as he tried to run to him, to help him in any way he could, one of the brigands stopped him dead in his tracks, blocking his way.
Finley gripped his sword tightly, knuckles going white around the hilt. He waited for the brigand to attack, and, once he did, he parried his blow easily, taking a step back before they began to circle each other.
Hmm . . . seems like I can still do this.
He had feared that he would have been a little too rusty, and that would end up making him more of a burden to his men than an asset, but the brigands didn’t seem to be very skilled fighters. Finley considered himself much better, even after having abandoned the practice for years.
He let the brigand attack first once more. He had learned the art of patience as a young boy when he first learned how to fight, after months of being stubborn and attacking his trainer first, which only led to him failing. Now, he waited patiently, watching the brigand with a careful gaze, his eyes never straying from him.
When the other man lunged at him once more, Finley parried the blow, spinning his blade and kicking the brigand in the stomach. The man doubled over, coughing and stumbling backward, but Finley didn’t give him time to retreat. He pierced his chest with his sword, driving the blade deep into his torso with a cry, and heard the clatter of the man’s sword as it fell on the ground.
The brigand was dead, his beady eyes devoid of life. Finley pulled his sword out and let it drop to the ground before turning to look for another to fight.
But he had no time to fight another man, not before two of the brigands used their torches to light a house on fire each. Finley watched for a moment in horror as the flames rapidly engulfed the wooden structures, his heart beating fast in his chest at the thought that there were still people inside them.
I must save them.
Finley rushed into one of the houses with a deep breath, the sweltering heat inside drenching him in sweat almost instantly. The smoke was thick, but Finley pushed his way past the flames to find a woman and a child cowering in the corner while a man was trying—and failing—to put out the fire.
“Come! This way!” Finley shouted at them, grabbing the child and leading them all outside through the back. It took them only moments to escape, but even in that little time, the smoke was thick in Finley’s lungs. He coughed as he ran to the second house, frantically searching for people, but before he could step inside, a man grabbed his arm.
“We’re all out!” he shouted. “We’re fine!”
Relief washed over Finley, and he took a moment to breathe. Once that moment was gone, though, he began shouting commands at the villagers.
“Grab all the water ye can find!” he said as he snatched the nearest bucket. “Put out the fire!”
Around him, there was chaos. People were screaming, running for their lives, trying to save themselves and their loved ones from the brigands. The ones who were brave enough helped Finley with his mission, filling bucket after bucket with water and throwing it at the houses.
The fire blazed in front of Finley, scorching his skin. The heat was almost unbearable, and so was the smoke, his lungs burning with it. But before long, he and the villagers had managed to tame the flames, leaving only embers, and Finley dared to look around him to assess the damage.
His men were all still standing, but so was the majority of the brigands. As rough and unskilled as they were compared to his soldiers, they fought dirty, without any honor. When Finley saw that the soldier was still struggling with his two opponents, he jumped in the middle of the fight, blocking the way to him for one of them.
It didn’t seem to matter to the brigand. The man looked crazed, his eyes as wide as that grin on his face, and Finley could hardly believe that there was a man like that out there, a man who took joy in killing others. But joy wasn’t his only motive for the attack. Finley was certain that they were the same brigands—or at least part of their group—that had been terrorizing the villages for months.
Finley threw himself at the brigand with a swing of his sword, but the other man’s attacks were erratic, just as wild as he was. Finley could do little other than block the brigand’s sword with his own and rush to the side to avoid being struck by the blade. He hopped to the left, the sword barely missing his neck when he moved, and immediately pirouetted around to deflect the blow that followed.
He was getting tired, and so were his men, but he could see that the fight was taking a lot out of the brigands, too. His shirt was covered in sweat and in the blood of the man that he had killed, sticking to him like a second skin. He could feel beads of sweat on his temples, between his shoulder blades, and his breath came out in labored huffs, lungs burning every time he drew air into them.
If he was going to make it out of that fight unscathed, he vowed to himself to be sure to train more.
The cries of the men and the grunts of those injured in the fight were a distant noise in his ears. He was focused on one thing and one thing only: getting out of there alive. He didn’t even know how many of his men and how many of the brigands were dead, how many were still standing and fighting. He didn’t dare take his eyes off his opponent, not when it seemed like his desire to kill him had overpowered everything else.
Finley attacked the brigand once more with a roar, initiating the attack and hoping that he would catch him by surprise. He was determined to put an end to it, to finish the man and then help with whoever was left, to head back to the castle with as few casualties as possible.
The brigand avoided his blow, but Finley attacked, again and again, making him backtrack and lose his footing. Once he had him cornered by the truck of a tree, he dealt the final blow, piercing him straight through his gut.
But his relief was short-lived. As he removed his sword from the brigand’s body and turned around, another one of those men attacked him from behind. Had Finley not moved the moment that he did, the brigand would have surely killed him, but as it were, the blade cut his flesh right under his ribs, making him cry out in pain.
The force of it was blinding, leaving him breathless for a moment. He looked at his torso, seeing that the blood from his side was quickly seeping into his shirt, painting it a dark crimson, and he immediately knew that the cut was deep, too deep for him to continue fighting.
When he looked at the brigand’s face, he found that he was just as surprised as he was, though perhaps because his plan had failed.
Or did it? If I dinna get back to the castle soon, I’ll be dead by the end of the day.
Even if he did get back to the castle, back to the healer of the clan, there was no telling if he would make it. Finley felt the sting of the cut every time he moved, every time he breathed, and with each sting came another rush of blood.
It took all of Finley’s strength to raise his sword and defend himself once he saw the brigand swing his own blade to finish him. But the man didn’t have the time, not before Lochlan ran to them, tackling the other man onto the ground and shoving his sword straight through his chest.
When Finley looked around him, he saw that most of the brigands were dead while a few had escaped. Though all of his men were still alive, almost all of them, save for Lochlan and one more man, were injured.
Most were even injured more than him, bleeding out on the ground.
“Finley!” Lochlan shouted, his sword forgotten, lodged in the brigand’s chest. He rushed to him, both hands pressing tightly on his wound to try to stop the bleeding, his gaze darting back and forth between the cut and his face. Finley waved a weak hand at him, though he suspected that it wasn’t as reassuring as he wanted it to be. “Dinna move. Quickly, cloth!”
At his command, a cloth appeared almost instantaneously next to him, and in his stupor, Finley wondered how his brother had managed to train them all so well. What was it that made them bend to his every command? What was it that made everyone listen to him?
Where did he come from?
When Finley looked at his hands, he found them pale, a ghostly white that betrayed his blood loss. He reached for Lochlan, grabbing his shoulder as the other worked on his wound, wrapping the cloth tightly around him, and a part of him wished that he would just stop.
“Lochlan,” he said forcefully, trying to get his attention. “Stop. Listen. If it comes to it, I want you to step up and be the Laird.”
“Shut up, Finley.”
“Listen,” Finley said, shaking his shoulder. “I ken that ye always say ye dinna want it, but ye must. The people listen to ye. They trust ye. There’s na anyone else who can do it. Promise me ye’ll do as I say. And please, take care of Malina for me. Never let her find out what I’ve done.”
“I said shut up, Finley,” Lochlan growled, and under any other circumstances, he would have taken offense at his words, but Lochlan’s hands were trembling, and he was working on his bandages with more concentration than he had ever seen him do anything else. “Dinna speak. Dinna say anythin’ . . . just . . . let me just do this, and we’ll get ye on the horse.”
Finley did as he was told. He had little strength left, and spending it on arguing with Lochlan seemed like a bad choice. He had to trust that his brother would know what the right thing for the clan was and that he would take his place once he passed.
Something that seemed more and more likely with every passing moment. He was feeling the effects of the blood loss and the shock, dizziness and nausea and that combination of heat and cold that left him both sweating and shaking.
At least he knew that Malina was loved. No matter what happened to him, Lochlan and their grandmother would take good care of her.
And Etna.
Even in his state, Finley couldn’t forget about Etna. The fear of death had certainly given him a new perspective into his situation, and he wondered if perhaps he had been wrong to push her away so quickly and easily.
What could she be thinkin’? What could she want?
Finley doubted that he would ever find out, but it was only one of the many regrets he had. He had kept himself away from Malina for so long, and now he would never get to see her grow up. He would never get to apologize for everything that he had done, and he was certain that when she would grow up, she would have few memories of him.
He had missed his chance. He had missed his chance to do so many things.
“Ye havena missed yer chance,” Lochlan said, and it was then that Finley realized that he had been speaking out loud. “Na, if I can help it. Come on, let’s get ye on the horse.”
With that, four hands grasped him tightly, securely, and carried him to Lochlan’s horse. Finley was about to protest, to tell them that he could ride on his own, but his legs barely supported him, and the world spun around him.
It would be a shame to survive this, only to fall off the horse and die.
Once they had gotten everyone on the horses, he slumped forward, Lochlan’s grip the only thing keeping him upright. With every step that the horse took, Finley’s breath was knocked out of him, and he gripped the saddle with tight fingers, knuckles going bone-white under pressure.
The countryside rushed by them, and Finley thought that if he should die, then he wanted to die out there, not in the castle. Not in the darkness of his chambers or the healer’s damp basement, not in the place where he had shut himself for years.
“I’m so sorry, Finley,” he heard Lochlan say behind him. “I’m so verra sorry. I should have been there. I should have fought with ye.”
“It’s alright,” Finley assured him, though even in his state, he couldn’t help but wonder where Lochlan had been.
“Ye canna die,” Lochlan said. “Do ye hear me? I dinna ken what I’ll do if ye die.”
“I hear ye,” Finley assured him with a humorless laugh, one that rattled his ribs and made him wince in pain. “But I’m afraid it’s really na in me hands. It’s in God’s hands, Lochlan.”
“Just stay awake until we make it to the castle,” Lochlan said. “Do ye think ye can do that?”
“Sure,” Finley replied, but it was a lie. He doubted that he could stay awake for much longer, his eyelids getting heavy and impossible to keep open.
Would it be so bad if I rested for a while?
The next moment, the world was black.
