Page 132 of Promised to the Forbidden Laird

Father Maol stood pale and rigid beside Cormac.

“Speak the vows!” Cormac ordered him.

“I willnae bind a woman beneath a blade.”

Cormac pressed the dagger more firmly against Donaldina’s skin. A thin line of blood appeared. Roy’s grip tightened upon his sword until pain entered his wounded shoulder.

“Then ye will watch her bleed before the altar,” Cormac snarled.

The priest’s face changed. Donaldina saw it.

“Dinnae,” she told him.

Cormac jerked her backward. “Silence.”

“I will speak nae vow tae ye,” she spoke more loudly. “Nae before God, nae before this clan and nae with me last breath.”

A murmur passed through the hall. Even held beneath a blade, she had taken the moment from him.

Cormac’s face twisted. Roy understood then that Cormac had never truly wanted her obedience. He wanted the world to witness it.

Donaldina twisted suddenly, driving her heel into the foot of the man holding her arm. His grip loosened. She nearly broke free, but Cormac caught her himself and dragged her backward against his chest.

Roy moved. Two attackers rushed him from the western aisle. He met them without slowing. Sparks leaped near his face. He turned one blade aside, drove his elbow into a throat, and forced the second man against a pillar. The man struck wildly. Roy ducked beneath the cut and drove his sword through the space below the attacker’s arm.

The body fell between the benches. Nothing existed beyond the dais. Not the fire, not the gathered clans, not the blood warming Roy’s shoulder or the pain spreading down his arm… only Donaldina, held beneath the banners that were meant to witness her choice.

He remembered her walking toward him moments before, the green gown, her mother’s clasp and Lachlan’s plaid folded over her arm. He remembered her whispering that he might still flee. She trusted him to remain.

Roy wrenched his sword free and stepped over the fallen man. Cormac’s supporters closed ranks before him. Eight armed men stood between Roy and the dais.

Beyond them, Donaldina met his gaze. There was fear in her eyes now. There was also certainty, the same certainty she carried in the hunting lodge, when smoke filled her lungs, and she believed he would reach her.

Roy advanced. They placed eight armed men between him and the woman he loved… but it was not nearly enough to keep her away from him.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Roy reached the foot of the dais with blood warming one shoulder beneath his wedding coat. Smoke stung his eyes and clung to his face, while the blade in his hand shone red beneath the joined banners.

Men attempted to close around him, but MacIver and MacNicol warriors struck them from either side, forcing open a narrow path through the overturned benches. Roy moved through it all without looking away from the dais.

Cormac held Donaldina against him. His arm was locked around her body, and the edge of his dagger rested beneath her jaw. Roy’s grip tightened around his sword.

“Another step,” Cormac warned, “and she dies before ye reach her.”

Roy stopped, barely six paces away. Every instinct in him demanded that he cross that distance. Six paces were nothing. He had covered more under arrows, through mud, and against men who meant to kill him. He knew how swiftly he could move and exactly where his sword had to fall.

But Cormac needed only the smallest movement of his hand.

The hall raged around them, with steel ringing against steel, frightened guests calling to one another and smoke rolling beneath the rafters. Roy heard the crash of benches and the cries of wounded men, yet all of it seemed distant beside the sound of Donaldina’s heavy breathing

The scent of burning heather mixed with blood, sweat, and crushed rushes beneath the boots of fighting men. Somewhere near the western wall, a child cried. A woman called for help. Father Maol stood beside the altar, pale beneath the point of another attacker’s sword.

Roy saw it all. Battle had trained him never to overlook danger. Yet, he could only truly look at Donaldina. He did not let his gaze fall to the blade. He kept it upon her face.

Fear shone in her eyes, but pride kept her still. Roy now knew her well enough to see the courage beneath her calm and the rage she refused to surrender, even with cold steel at her throat. He wondered whether she could read what he dared not speak.

Dinnae move too soon.