Page 131 of Promised to the Forbidden Laird

Roy looked toward him. “Send only half the men. The rest remain inside the walls.”

A crash sounded from the side passage. Men shouted. The narrow service door burst inward, its wooden bar splintered from the opposite side. Armed figures poured through, some wearing servants’ cloaks, others dressed in the colors of minor clans welcomed through Dun Ard’s gates the day before.

They entered as guests, or hidden among them. One drove a blade beneath a MacNicol guard’s ribs before the man could draw his sword. Another overturned a bench into the central aisle, trapping several guests behind it.

The wedding hall erupted. Roy drew his sword.

“Seal the main doors!” he shouted. “MacIver men tae the eastern passage. MacNicols protect the civilians!”

The orders carried above the panic. Men answered them from instinct, training, or sheer relief that someone had given the chaos a shape. An attacker rushed Roy from the side. Roy turned the first stroke and drove his shoulder into the man’s chest. The intruder struck the floor. Roy’s blade followed, ending the struggle before the man could rise.

Another came through the press. Roy cut across his arm, forced him backward, and saw too late that the fighting divided him from Donaldina.

“Roy!”

Her voice reached him through steel, screams and the roar of overturned benches.

He turned. Donaldina was standing near the dais with Mairi beside her. Two MacNicol guards fought their way to them, but armed men blocked the aisle. Father Maol remained beside the altar, one hand gripping the wooden cross at his breast.

Donaldina seized Mairi’s arm and attempted to draw her behind the high table.

At that exact moment, Cormac emerged from among the guests. He wore no clan colors. He had concealed himself beneath a dark cloak and the ordinary dress of a lesser retainer, passing through Dun Ard’s gates while every eye searched the roads for banners.

For one terrible moment, Roy saw how carefully the attack had been designed. The fires drew the guards outward. The visiting clans crowded the castle with unfamiliar faces. The political challenge made every armed guest appear dangerous, and every hesitation look like betrayal.

Cormac had not come merely to attack Dun Ard. He had come to turn the wedding itself into proof that peace could not survive.

Roy moved toward him. Three men closed across the aisle. Roy struck the first beneath the jaw with the guard of his sword. The second caught his shoulder with a blade, slicing cloth and skin. Heat spread beneath his sleeve. Roy scarcely felt it.

Donaldina lifted a heavy candlestick from the altar and swung it into the face of the man reaching for her. Bone cracked. He staggered, clutching his nose.

For one heartbeat, Roy felt savage pride. Then another man caught her from behind, wrenching one arm against her back. She fought him with everything she possessed. She drove her heel downward, twisted her wrist, and threw her weight violently to the side. Her attacker cursed and tightened his hold. Cormac mounted the dais.

“End this!” he shouted.

His voice cut through the hall with the force of madness sharpened into command. He seized Father Maol by the front of his robes and pressed a dagger beneath the priest’s chin.

“The accord is void. The Crown abandoned these lands and forfeited its authority over them.”

No one listened willingly, yet the violence forced the words upon them. Cormac dragged the priest toward Donaldina.

“She will be joined tae the man chosen by Highland blood, nae delivered tae a foreign laird beneath an English King’s paper.”

Donaldina’s expression hardened. “Ye were never chosen.”

Cormac struck her. The blow snapped her head sideways. Roy saw blood brighten at one corner of her mouth. The world narrowed. He cut through the man before him. His sword entered beneath the ribs and came free hot with blood.

“Cormac!” The name left Roy like thunder.

The former looked across the hall. Fear passed through his face. Then he seized Donaldina by the hair and drew the dagger against her throat.

Roy stopped. The point pressed into the skin beneath her jaw, near the faint scar left from the first time Cormac had held a blade there. Donaldina’s breathing came hard, but she did not plead. Blood marked her lip. Her hair loosened from its ceremonial arrangement, dark strands falling around her face and catching against the heather woven there. Her gaze fixed upon Roy’s with fierce, terrible steadiness.

“Ye see?” Cormac smiled. “Even now, MacIver’s authority ends where her life begins.”

Roy heard the challenge beneath the words. Cormac believed he had found the only chain strong enough to hold him.

Around the dais, fighting continued. Guests crouched beneath tables. Malcolm’s warriors struggled to clear the central aisle, while smoke entered through the opened doors and spread in thin gray layers beneath the rafters. Somewhere outside, men shouted for water. The smell of burning heather reached the hall.