Page 73 of Wanted By the Wicked Highlander

Fergus stepped directly in front of him, his broad chest blocking the horse’s flank, his face twisted into a dark, rigid scowl. “He’ll slaughter ye the second ye arrive, MacGregor! Malcolm Kerr doesnae do deals. He doesnae trade hostages. You know this better than anyone! He wants yer head on a pike to show the Northern Lords!”

“Probably,” Sebastian replied, his fingers wrapping around the cold iron pommel of his saddle. He looked up, his dark eyes locking onto the MacKenzie Laird with a chilling, absolute certainty. “So we prepare properly.”

“Prepare?” Fergus barked, throwing his hands up toward the rain-slicked battlements. “Ye have nay time to prepare! The sun hits the pine tops in less than six hours! Ye’re walkin’ into a pocket with nothin’ but a broadsword and a prayer!”

“Then we make the prayer short,” Sebastian rumbled. He stepped closer to Fergus, his towering frame casting a long shadow over the smaller man.

He studied the MacKenzie Laird for one long moment.

He had known this man less than a single day, a handful of words in a rain-soaked courtyard, a fortress reinforced on nothing more than a stranger's letter of warning.

It should not have been enough to build the kind of trust he was about to ask for. But a man did not turn his own Hall into a garrison on a single warning unless he already counted the sender as something closer than a stranger, and Fergus MacKenzie had done exactly that the moment Sebastian's message arrived. Kin by marriage, if not yet by name. It would have to be enough.

His jaw flexed sharply, a thick muscle ticking beneath the stubble of his cheek. “Listen to me, Fergus. If there’s even a chance I die up on that Ridge…”

He stopped, the air freezing in his lungs as the image of a small, dark-haired boy sitting alone at the high table flashed behind his eyes.

“Ye keep Brian safe,” Sebastian commanded, the words tearing out of his throat like rusted iron. “Ye protect the Clan. Ye merge the names if ye must to keep the MacGregors from bein’ hunted into the dirt, but the boy lives to see his inheritance. Do ye swear it?”

Fergus stared at him, the anger instantly draining from his face, replaced by the heavy, solemn weight of a warlord who understood the finality of a man’s last terms. He reached out, his hand gripping Sebastian’s forearm hard enough to leave a mark through the leather.

“Aye,” Fergus said, his voice dropping into a deep, gravelly vow. “On me father’s grave. The boy will be guarded like me own blood. No Kerr will touch him while a single MacKenzie draws breath.”

“Good,” Sebastian said.

He ripped his arm free and vaulted into the saddle with a single, efficient motion. The fresh stallion shifted restlessly beneath him, its hooves cutting into the black mud as Sebastian pulled the reins taut, turning the beast to face the shivering messenger still kneeling in the dirt.

“Ye,” Sebastian barked, pointing the tip of his scabbard at the man’s chest. “Stand up.”

The messenger wobbled to his feet, his hands trembling violently against his tunic as he looked up at the Blackthorn warlord. “Me Laird, I only brought the words he gave me.”

“Ye’re goin’ to take some words back,” Sebastian interrupted, his voice dropping low enough that only the men in the immediate circle could hear. “Ye tell Kerr I am comin’. Alone. Just as he demanded. But the Lady does nae walk back through the snow by herself.”

The messenger blinked, his pale face slick with rain. “He said nay other warriors.”

“Me commander rides behind me at a distance,” Sebastian snapped, gesturing toward Hamish with a sharp jerk of his chin. “Hamish will come to the edge of the clearin’ to escort the Lady back. He will stand at the tree line to make sure Kerr honors his word the moment I step into the open. Other than that, everyone stays back. Nay spears, nay archers, nay MacKenzie banners.”

Hamish’s head snapped up, his brow furrowing into a hard line. “Sebastian, let me go into the center with ye. If we double-team the bastard…”

“Nay,” Sebastian growled, not looking down at him. “Ye bring her back, Hamish. That is yer only duty. If ye see a single archer out of place before the exchange, if ye see a single hair on her head harmed, ye take her, and ye run back to these gates. Do ye understand me?”

Hamish gritted his teeth, his fist slamming against his own thigh in frustration, but he nodded. “Aye. I will see her through the gates.”

Sebastian looked back down at the messenger. “Will he accept the terms, or do I bring the whole bloody valley up that mountain to hunt him down?”

The messenger swallowed hard, looking at the sharp lines of the archers on the walls, then back to the terrifying intensity in Sebastian’s eyes. “He will accept. He only wants ye, MacGregor. He does nae care about the commander.”

“Then we move,” Sebastian said.

He did not wait for a response. He dug his spurs into the stallion’s flanks, the horse leaping forward with a violent burst of speed that sent a spray of black mud across the courtyard. The messenger scrambled to find his own mounts, his guards quickly forcing him into the saddle as they rushed to follow the warlord through the heavy oak gates.

The iron portcullis rattled behind them, a loud, metallic crash that sounded like the closing of a tomb.

Fergus was already shouting orders before the dust settled.

"Send a rider to Dunalasdair," he barked at his captain. "Tell Alasdair MacRae his western ridge is about to have Kerr's whole rearguard runnin' through it, and I'll owe him a debt he cancollect on for the rest of his life if he moves his men to the Old Kiln crossin' before nightfall."

He turned to Hamish. "Alasdair's lands sit closer to the Weepin' Stone than mine do. If this goes to open battle, that's where it'll happen, and that's where we muster."