Beauty and the Beastly Highlander by Kenna Kendrick
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The moment they approached the lake, Finley could hear the faint sound of voices coming from that area, and he instantly knew that they were on the right track. He couldn’t imagine anyone else is out there at that lake so late at night. It must have been Mairi and Etna, though he couldn’t tell if there was anyone else.
As long as he heard voices, it meant that Etna was alive, but he didn’t know if the same was true for Malina. It was the only thought that had been on his mind ever since they had ridden out of the castle walls, and it had already taken a toll on him. He was already feeling the weight of grief on his shoulders, weighing him down with every passing moment and making it impossible to draw in any air, his lungs burning with it, eyes stinging from the wind and the tears that refused to shed.
But he had to hold onto hope, he kept reminding himself. He couldn’t give up on Malina so easily. There would be nothing left for him to fight for if she was dead, and then how would he bring himself to ride on?
“Do ye hear them?” he asked Lochlan, who was still riding by his side, shouting to be heard over the wind. He wanted to make sure that he wasn’t the only one who could, that the voices weren’t just a figment of his imagination or a whisper of the wind.
“Aye,” Lochlan said, confirming it once and for all. His brother’s voice was dripping with fury, jaw clenched, and eyes narrowed, his fingers holding onto the reins white-knuckled. He looked murderous, and Finley could hardly blame him for it.
He couldn’t imagine what the man was going through. Not only had Finley, his own brother, thought that he was a traitor and a murderer—if anyone, Finley was the traitor himself, he thought, for turning his back on his brother—but now the woman that he had loved for a long time turned out to be the actual traitor.
Had Mairi ever loved him? Or had it all been an act, just so that she could get the information that she needed?
Finley didn’t know which of the two was better, which one would do the least damage to Lochlan. If she did love him, even a little, then perhaps the blow would be lessened. If she didn’t, then perhaps Lochlan would have an easier time letting go.
But it would destroy him, no matter what. Anna’s betrayal had ruined his entire life, and he didn’t want Lochlan to go through the same thing. The man had his entire life ahead of him. He had never had the chance to marry. He didn’t have a family. He didn’t have a child that could connect him once again to the world, despite his pain.
All he had was Finley and Arlene, and Finley had already let him down.
But na again. Never again.
No matter what happened, Finley would be by his side.
“There they are!” Finley shouted as they made it to the lake. And then he noticed that it wasn’t just a couple of figures standing in the dark. Under the light of the torches, he could see a dozen or more figures, all of them too big to be women.
“Brigands!” Lochlan shouted, taking the word right from Finley’s lips. With a roar, his brother unsheathed his sword, holding it over his head as he led the charge. “Dinna let any of these bastards escape! Kill them all!”
The cries of the men behind them were deafening in the quiet of the valley, and they were met by more from the opposing side. The brigands were quick to react, each man drawing his own sword as Finley’s soldiers jumped off their horses, the frightened animals rushing to get as far away from the action as they could.
“Malina!” Finley shouted, his gaze searching for her frantically. But there were so many men surrounding him, so many bodies that his chances of spotting her were slim, even if she was right there.
“Dadaidh!”
Malina’s voice was shrill, terrified, but Finley breathed a sigh of relief. She was alive. She was still alive. She hadn’t been harmed.
Finley rushed to the source of the voice, but before he could get too far, a brigand shoved himself in his path, stopping him dead in his tracks. He was a mountain of a man, towering over Finley, but Finley had taken down men like him time and time again.
And this time, rage coursed through him. He was desperate. He would do anything to win.
With a shout, Finley swung his sword, aiming straight for the other man’s head. But the brigand, despite his massive size, was deceptively quick, jumping back in time to avoid Finley’s attack. When he counterattacked, their swords met with a clang, the force of it making Finley’s entire body shake.
Around him, the fight had begun in earnest, men from both sides throwing themselves at each other. The air was filled with screams and the stench of blood, some of them already falling dead.
In every fight, Finley always tried to keep an eye out for his men. He tried to be aware of his surroundings, to rush to their help if he needed to, but now he could hardly tell what was happening around him. The torches provided little light, and the sky was cloudy, obstructing the moon. The darkness was his biggest enemy, but his side wasn’t the only one with the disadvantage.
But the two sides seemed to be evenly matched, much to his frustration. He had always known that the specific group of brigands that had been plaguing his clan was stronger and more organized than most. It was why they had managed to torment him and the clan for so long. Though they weren’t as well trained and disciplined as his own men, they could hold their own in a fight, especially since many of them also had brute strength.
It seemed to Finley as though they only recruited men the size of a bear.
But Finley would kill them. He would kill them all himself if it came to it for what they had done to his clan and now to Malina.
His opponent rushed toward him once more, attacking him with a ferocity that had Finley stumbling backward, trying to avoid his blows. The man swung his sword from side to side, forcing Finley to backtrack as he tried to defend himself, giving him no time and no space to counterattack.
It drove Finley mad. He refused to be bested by a brigand, no matter how much bigger and stronger he was than him.
Though Finley was a tall man, he was quick on his feet, and his slender muscles packing a strength that many underestimated. Ever since he was a boy, he would spend hours practicing with a sword, eager to conquer anyone who could threaten the wellbeing of what was to be his clan.
And though he had mostly kept to the castle in the past few years, refusing to even go out to the training grounds often, his strength hadn’t abandoned him.
Nor had his stubbornness.
The thud of the bodies around him, one falling after the other to the ground, never to stand up again, filled him with dread. But he pushed it aside. There would be time to mourn for the fallen soon if those men belonged to his clan. For the moment, he had to focus on the man that kept him from finding Malina.
His breath was ragged, and his body covered in sweat as he attacked once more, bringing his sword up to cut through the brigand’s torso. The man parried the blow, and then the next, and even the one after that. Finley soon realized that he couldn’t overpower him, so he had to outsmart him. Swinging his sword up, the man rushed to meet his blade, but before he could, Finley spun around him with a speed that left the other man confused. With his back unprotected, there was nothing the brigand could do to save himself from Finley’s sword.
Grunting as he moved, Finley pushed his blade through the brigand’s back, piercing his flesh. The man’s sword fell from his hand, clattering onto the ground, and blood rushed over Finley’s hands as he pulled his blade out of the brigand’s body. He watched as the man fell onto his knees, choked off sounds escaping his lips, before he collapsed onto his face, finally dead.
Finley’s chest heaved as he watched the brigand, waiting for any signs of life. The fight had taken a lot out of him, more than he had expected, but he wasn’t done yet. He would keep going, even if the only thing that would push him were his own stubbornness and his refusal to give up.
“Lochlan!” he shouted, searching for the man. The chaos around him had only grown since he had begun fighting the brigand, and it seemed that most men from each side still stood, the fight stretching over what seemed to him like hours but had only been minutes.
When his gaze finally found his brother, he saw him fighting off two of the brigands, and he rushed to his help. They had cornered him, the two of them having an unfair advantage over him, and Finley’s heart skipped a beat when he saw them both attacking him.
But Lochlan avoided both their blades, jumping out of harm’s way at the last moment. When Finley joined the fight, luring one of the two men away from his brother, Lochlan quickly struck the other down.
“Ye dinna seem so tough noo, do ye?” Finley asked the brigand that remained with a swing of his blade. The man parried his blow and then turned to Lochlan as though he had a personal vendetta against him, ignoring Finley in favor of fighting his brother.
“What did ye do to anger him?” Finley shouted, and Lochlan only had time to give him a shrug before he had to duck to save himself from the man’s sword.
“I dinna ken!” Lochlan shouted. “I seem to anger a lot of people these days!”
Finley huffed out a humorless laugh before throwing himself at the brigand, his boot connecting with the man’s kidney.
He barely flinched.
“Shite,” Finley mumbled as that beast of a man turned to look at him. He suddenly seemed to be angrier at Finley than he was at Lochlan, and he began to stomp toward him, his heavy steps seemingly rattling the entire ground.
But Finley was nothing if not persistent. He decided that the best plan of attack was to strike first, and so he ran toward the brigand, sword held tightly in his hands. At the same time, he saw Lochlan do the same, an angry growl rumbling in his chest.
The brigand seemed uncertain as to whom he should fight first, and Finley watched him falter for a moment. Though that one moment of hesitation was all, he and Lochlan needed to strike him down. The two of them shoved their blades into the man at the same time, Finley into his chest and Lochlan into his back, and soon, the only thing that was holding the brigand upright were those two swords.
Lochlan pulled his blade out of the man with a curse on his lips, prompting Finley to do the same. When he looked around, he saw that many of his men were still standing, still fighting, even though several were injured.
And then, in the chaos that took place around them, his gaze finally came to rest on Malina. She was inconsolable, crying to the point where her face was bright red, reaching for Etna as Mairi held her back. That knife on his daughter’s throat made Finley see red, his rage overshadowing anything else.
But he couldn’t simply run to Malina. He couldn’t risk pushing Mairi into a corner and making her so desperate that she would kill his little girl without a second thought.
It was Etna who was trying to approach them. Instead, her hands outstretched as though she was trying to show Mairi that she wasn’t a threat. She seemed to be speaking to her, though Finley couldn’t hear what she was saying over the sounds of the battle, the cacophony of swords and screams so loud that it encompassed everything else, drowning it out. But as she was speaking, she took step after step, closing the distance between them, and Mairi didn’t seem to notice.
Clever lass.
Perhaps if Etna managed to distract Mairi long enough, he and Lochlan could rescue Malina from her and capture her simultaneously. But when he turned to look at Lochlan, he found him pallid, hands shaking around the hilt of his sword.
“Lochlan,” Finley said, his tone commanding to pull him out of his thoughts, “this isna the time for this. Dinna let her make ye do somethin’ that ye’ll regret.”
As he spoke, Finley lay a heavy hand on Lochlan’s shoulder, trying to calm him. It had been a long time since he had last seen him so angry, and he had forgotten how alike they could sometimes be.
Finley could hardly control his own anger, struggling to keep it at bay and think rationally. But at that moment, he had to be the voice of reason. He had to make sure that Lochlan wouldn’t do something reckless and get himself killed, along with everyone else.
The change in him was visible when he began to calm himself, and Finley let go of the breath that he had been holding.
“How will we get Malina?” Lochlan asked him, and Finley had no good answer.
“I dinna ken. Perhaps—”
But his words were cut short when one of the brigands came stumbling toward Mairi and Malina, dazed from his injuries. His sword was still dangling from his hand, swinging dangerously close to the two of them, and Finley rushed toward them, panic gripping him.
But he was far, so far from him.
I canna reach him. I canna reach him in time.
