Page 30 of Auctioned to the Cruel Highlander
The priest stumbled sideways with terror written all over his face, but Ciaran did not freeze. He felt almost vindicated in a way, for he had been anticipating this.
“Hector,” he called out to his brother, also his man-at-arms, already moving. “Get the guests inside and bolt the doors. Keep them there.”
Hector sprang into action before he finished speaking, turning at once to the nearest guards.
Ciaran swallowed and looked around as people dashed to the door for their lives. The old nightmare had returned in flesh, but he was no longer the boy trapped inside of it.
He turned to a pale Ava and caught her arm. “Go with them.”
She did not move. Her face had turned deathly white with shock, her eyes fixed somewhere beyond him as if the world had broken too suddenly for sense to reach it.
“Ava.”
“I… I daenae ken how to—” A distant scream cut her off. He felt her flinch.
“Look, I ken this is all very scary, but for now, I need ye to go with them to safety. Do ye understand me?”
Ava swallowed, still unable to move. At least not until he tightened his grip on her.
“Move.”
It was too late. A voice he knew better than he cared to admit cut through the chaos.
“Quite the lovely ceremony, would ye nae say,meLaird?”
Ciaran swallowed and turned around slowly.
It was him.Jack Scott.
He was a bit leaner than Ciaran remembered. He had a fuller beard too, with white streaking the corners. He looked just as deadly as he had thirteen years ago. Just as beastly.
And Ciaran felt the rage he had thought he had buried rush to the surface.
Jack cut through the dispersing crowd toward them, armed and smiling. His gaze fixed on Ava first and then returned to Ciaran.
“Now, ye didnae think I would let this family have a peaceful wedding after what ye did to me lover now, did ye?”
“Jack—” Ciaran coughed. “Whatever the matter is, we can settle it without anyone dying.”
“Oh, I daenae think we can,” Jack responded, his voice thick. “Theonlyway to settle this is if yer bride dies like mine did.”
The words rang in Ciaran’s ears, and the world narrowed to the space between them.
“Seems fair to me, do ye nae think?”A dangerous smile settled on Jack’s face. “An eye for an eye.”
CHAPTER 10
Ciaran kept staring at Jack,wondering what plans he had for his bride.
Jack laughed, almost as if he had heard the thought.
“I should have killed ye back then,” he said, slowly circling them with his blade, as though this were some private sport arranged for his pleasure. “Would have saved meself the trouble.”
Ciaran heard the words. He even felt them strike. However, the old helplessness they had once stirred within him did not take hold. The field was already moving too fast, and men were shouting behind him, their steel ringing. Ava stood too near. Jack’s grin held the same smugness it had held thirteen years ago, and that alone was enough to harden Ciaran’s resolve.
He was going to end him.
Jack’s eyes gleamed with malice. “She jumped, ye ken,” he said. “Felt bad for ye in the end. Poor broken boy left alive while the rest of them rotted.”
