Page 158 of Auctioned to the Cruel Highlander
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.”
The blow landed where it was meant to.
Isla.
Pity.
Guilt.
The old ruin dragged into the present and twisted until it made him him.
For one violent instant, Ciaran saw another wedding broken open, another bride tied forever to slaughter, another version of himself drowning in blood and smoke and not yet strong enough to answer any of it.
Then Jack moved, and Ciaran did not need memory anymore. He met him hard.
Bastard.
Jack lunged fast, his blade aiming for the opening near his ribs, but Ciaran knocked it aside with enough force to smash his bones.
They clashed and turned through trampled flowers and overturned benches, through the wreck of the sacred space now made ugly by shouting men and blood underfoot.
Jack fought like a creature long practiced in treachery, fast and dirty and viciously willing to use the chaos around him. Ciaran fought with only one aim: to end a threat.
