Page 82 of How To Tempt A Bodyguard

The fight became a blur of motion and instinct. Matthew had been in brawls before. Countless fights in the ring, back-alley scraps, desperate struggles in dark warehouses. But this was different. These men were trained. Organised. Armed. They moved in pairs, covering each other, trying to flank and overwhelm.

They were also trying to capture Florence.

Matthew saw it in the way they fought, savage against the men but always angling towards the tent. Always glancing at the canvas flap, calculating.

They wanted her alive. Which meant they'd been ordered to take her, so the blackguard… He couldn’t, wouldn’t, finish the thought.

A man lunged at Matthew with a blade. Matthew sidestepped, caught his wrist, twisted. The bone snapped with a wet crack. The man screamed. Matthew silenced him with a knife to the ribs.

Another came from behind. Matthew spun. Too slow. The blade caught his arm, slicing through coat and shirt and skin. Pain flared, hot and bright. He ignored it, drove his elbow into the man's face, felt cartilage crunch beneath the blow.

The man staggered. Matthew finished him with a strike to the throat.

His knife was slick with his own blood, but he couldn't feel the wound anymore. Couldn't feel anything except the need to survive—for her.

He turned towards the tent.

And saw a shadow slip through the flap.

No.

Matthew ran.

The distance was only twenty feet, but it felt like miles. He crashed through two men who tried to block his path, barely registering the blows he took, the blade that scored across his ribs, the fist that glanced off his jaw.

Nothing mattered except reaching that tent.

He tore through the canvas flap, knife raised.

And nearly took Florence's blade in his side.

She’d spun at his entrance, arm already driving forward in the thrust he'd taught her. He’d caught her wrist an inch before the steel met his flesh, deflecting the blow to the side.

"Matthew!" She gasped, eyes wild. "I almost… I could have…"

"Not a chance." He was breathing hard, blood dripping from half a dozen wounds, but he found himself smiling. "Your form's good, but you'd never have got past my arm."

He looked past her. A man lay crumpled on the ground, clutching his stomach. Blood seeped between his fingers. Florence's boot knife was buried in his gut.

"Well done," Matthew said quietly.

Florence stared at the man. Her face was pale, her hands trembling. But her voice was steady.

"I heard the canvas tear."

"And you handled it." He gripped her shoulder briefly. "You did well."

Outside, the sounds of fighting had faded. Matthew heard Brennan's voice calling the all-clear, followed by Duff's colourful cursing.

It was over.

For now.

Matthew crouched beside the wounded man. He was young, barely more than a boy, really. Dark hair matted with sweat. Face twisted in pain. Eyes darting between Matthew and Florence with the desperate calculation of a cornered animal.

"You're going to die," Matthew said conversationally. "Gut wound like that, you've got maybe an hour. Two if you're lucky. It'll hurt the whole time."

The boy whimpered.