Page 2 of The Iron Earl

His forearm swinging up to cover his face, Jacob plunged back through the flames licking out of the cottage door for air and he disappeared into the inferno of the house.

Hell, Torrie’s family had to still be inside.

Lachlan ran past Sloane and Torrie. Two steps away from the door, a terrifying creak filled the air and the roof of the cottage collapsed inward.

The surging blast of heat and flames sent Lachlan flying backward and he landed on his back.

Seconds slowed to lifetimes. One after another.

His ears ringing from the blast, he managed to push himself up from the dirt as embers spun through the air, sizzling onto his skin.

No. Not Jacob. It should have been him. He was the soldier, dammit. His was supposed to be the expendable life.

Sloane. Where the hell was she? He twisted his body to see behind him. Where?

Onto his knees, stumbling to his feet, he searched through the choking smoke, nothing but pounding in his ears, reverberations shaking his skull.

Sloane.

She’d rolled away from Torrie, the flames on their cousin’s skirt now dampened.

Screaming. Sloane was screaming. He couldn’t hear her, but he could see her through the blackened debris floating through the air.

Screaming, she struggled to her feet and charged directly at the man holding a torch that stood just beyond the reach of the inferno.

The brute tossed the flaming stick to the ground a moment before Sloane blasted into him, her arms swinging in attack.

A blade. A silver blade flashed in the smoldering air, high in the brute’s hand.

His brother dead and now Sloane—hell no—not Sloane too.

Lachlan found his feet and lunged at the two of them. Instinct from the years fighting on the continent engulfed him and his hands stretched out, reaching with one purpose. Stop the knife.

Lachlan crashed into his sister and the brute and sent all three of them sprawling, tangled, to the ground.

But the blade was in his hand—he’d managed that.

Red flashed in his eyes, taking his sight, taking his mind.

He rolled to his knees and plunged the dagger into the brute’s neck in one quick motion. His arm lifted and drove the blade into him again. And again. And again.

And again.

Lost. Lost in a netherworld of rage, for how long he didn’t know. A hell where he didn’t know anything other than the blade sinking into flesh again and again.

“Lach.”

“Lachlan.”

The slightest whisper of sound broke through the pounding in his ears.

“Lach.”

Something hitting his back. Pounding on him.

His hand on the hilt of the blade stopped, high in the air.

He spun.

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