Page 159 of Auctioned to the Cruel Highlander
And that was the difference.
The ground dipped beneath Jack’s boot, and Ciaran took that opportunity. He drove forward, forcing him back a step. Somewhere at his rear, he heard Ava’s breath catch.
Nay.
She was too close. And the way Jack continued to stare at her only proved one thing—he was not joking when he had made that threat earlier.
An eye for an eye.
Jack twisted sideways and feinted left. Ciaran followed, too intent on the blade to miss the second strike until the last instant. It was not meant for him. It was meant for Ava.
“Ciaran!” Ava screamed behind him.
Before a single thought could form in his head, he moved. He stepped between them and took the blow to the shoulder.
A wave of hot pain tore through him immediately. It wasn’t deep enough to make him fall, but it was real enough to make his vision go white for a beat. He heard Ava gasp, and when he turned his head, he saw dark blood spread across the white of her wedding dress.
Hisblood.
On her.
Something in him went utterly still, and the memory flashed once again. Another wedding marked by blood and another bride standing in it.
Jack smiled, his eyes gleaming with nothing but utter evil. “Aye. There ye are.”
Ciaran straightened. The pain and the noise remained. Even the wreck around him remained. But then realization dawned. Jack wasn’t going to stop. Not until he was fully satisfied, and the only way that was happening was by killing Ava.
Suddenly, the pain and noise around him fell away. All that was left was the cold inside him.Dark, bottomless cold.
“I’m bored with this game,” he said, his voice dropping as low as his emotions.
Jack’s smile faltered. “What are ye?—”
Before he could finish, Ciaran moved.
The end of the fight was swift. All it took was one savage clash of steel, then the final strike, hard and certain and without flourish. Ciaran swung his blade and drove it into Jack’s chest.
Jack’s body jolted, and the breath rushed out of him in an ugly squeal.For a heartbeat, he remained standing, his eyes wide with disbelief, as though a man who had survived too long had finally met the one ending he had not prepared for.
Then he fell.
Ciaran looked down at him once, his chest heaving and his shoulder burning.
It was done.
He turned at once and caught the wider field back into hand. Two of Jack’s men were already down. Another was trying to make a run for the trees. Hector had one pinned in close combat near the lower path.
Ciaran’s voice cut across the grounds like a blade. “Kill or take the rest. I want none of them loose.”
The men around him moved at once.
Good. Let this be finished. Let nay one ever think of doing this again.
Then he turned to Ava and began to walk toward her.
She had not moved far. Shock held her in place more firmly than fear now. Her hands hung midair, as if she had forgotten what they were meant to do. Her eyes fixed on the blood at his shoulder and then on the stain on her dress.
“Ye’re bleeding,” she said.
