Highland Outlaw (Campbell Trilogy #2)(82)

A quick glance around told him that the day was almost done. Only a few Campbell guardsmen remained. His fury at Gregor rose as he noted that four MacGregors had fallen—including two of the men with him at Castle Campbell—shot before they could reach the Campbells with their swords.

Gregor had stretched Patrick to the end of his brotherly compassion. He understood his brother's rage—his need for revenge and the hatred that blackened his soul that matched his own—but the challenge to Patrick's authority as chief could not be ignored. And the blind rage lashing around inside him was rooted in something far more elemental. Gregor had threatened his woman, and right now Patrick could kill him for it.

He glanced over his shoulder, relieved to see that Lizzie had followed his direction and stayed back, partially hidden in the trees. When he turned back around, his gaze met his brother's. Slowly they walked toward each other until they stood face-to-face a few feet apart.

Through the rage, Patrick felt sadness that it had come to this.

“I should kill you for what you've done,” he said flatly. “You think you can be chief?”

Gregor's face was as hard and unyielding as his own. “A better one than you. I wouldn't put a lass before my clan. Before my own sister.”

Patrick gritted his teeth, forcing himself to bite back the swell of rage. Gregor was just trying to make him lose control. There was only one way to settle this once and for all.

“If you want to challenge my authority, brother, do it as a man.” He swung his sword around, holding it before him. “By right of sword.”

If he lost, he'd be leaving Lizzie unprotected, at the nonexistent mercy of his brother.

But he wouldn't lose.

Gregor snarled, his mouth pulling back in a cruel imitation of a grin. “To the winner goes the spoils?” he taunted, glancing over at Lizzie.

When Patrick followed his gaze, Gregor swung his sword around in a violent slash that Patrick barely blocked. It was his answer to Patrick's challenge—a dirty move that would have made Arthur and his knights of the Round Table shudder in shame, but it set the stage for how this battle would be fought. Chivalry and the knightly code of honor had no place among hunted men. The MacGre-gors survived by ignoring the rules. It was one of the reasons they were prized by other clans as fierce warriors.

But Patrick could play just as dirty as his brother, and his next move proved it. He spun and snaked his foot around Gregor's ankle, knocking him to the ground. Gregor just managed to roll out of the way of the blow from Patrick's sword that followed.

Gregor righted himself, and the battle continued. They circled each other like gladiators of old, sizing each other up, exchanging swings of the swords, trying to find the weakness that would let them go in for the kill. Though Patrick had the advantage of height and build, Gregor was quick. They were well matched—always had been—but Patrick had one thing Gregor did not: Lizzie's life in his hands.

The battle continued, blow after blow, swing after swing, until sweat poured off his skin, and the muscles in his arms and stomach burned from exertion. He was tiring, but so was his brother. The violence of the blows increased as exhaustion and the urgency to see it done overrode patience.

Patrick blocked another blow to his head; steel clashed against steel, reverberating in his ears and the force of the blow shuddering through his body. He responded with one of his own, grunting as he swung his blade with two hands across his body in a wide arc. This time his brother was a fraction of a second slow, and Patrick's blow knocked him back.

It was the opening he'd been waiting for. With a fierce cry, Patrick swung his sword again and again, raining down on his brother blow after blow of powerful strikes. Gregor couldn't withstand the force and started to fall back, blocking rather than fighting.

Patrick had him, and they both knew it.

One final blow brought Gregor to the ground. Patrick had the point of his sword at his neck before Gregor could recover. Patrick's heart was hammering from exhaustion and the rush of blood from the fight. He wanted to kill him, and the force of it shook him. He could see the rage he was feeling returned in his brother's gaze. And something else—hatred. Gregor wanted him to do it.

God, he was tempted. But this was his brother, the only brother he had left. Other than Annie, the last of his family. He'd won; that was enough. “Yield,” he said softly.

Hatred blazed back at him, and Patrick knew that Gregor would not have shown him the same mercy. He pushed the blade a little deeper, drawing blood. “Do you yield?”

“Aye,” Gregor grunted through clenched teeth.

“Say it,” Patrick demanded.

“I yield, damn it.”

After a moment, Patrick pulled back his sword, leaving Gregor seething in the dirt and mud. Gregor was furious, but he would get over it. His challenge had failed.

Patrick mounted his horse and swung it around, closing the short distance to Lizzie in a few moments. He dropped to the ground and approached her cautiously—walking past one of the men who'd fallen trying to protect her. The one who'd been dragged by his horse hung at a grotesque angle only a few feet ahead. She was watching Patrick with wide, terrified eyes, staring at his face as if she'd never seen it before.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

She took a few steps back. “W-who are you? W-w-what do you m-mean to do with me?”