One of the reasons Alex felt he could no longer fight with the Highland Guard was that he was tired of furtive tactics and wanted to take the fight to the battlefield like a knight. Yet here he was taking orders from the man whose dishonorable treachery had cost him the lives of his brothers.

Irony was a capricious bitch.

It took everything Alex had not to respond and let the pompous bastard get away with the smug reference to his brother. But Pembroke was wrong if he thought Alex needed to prove anything. He might have at one time, but he’d proved himself many times over fighting alongside the best warriors in Christendom. The best of the best; that was why Bruce had chosen them. Each warrior of the Highland Guard had brought an important skill of warfare to the group. Except for Alex, that is. He was good with a dagger, but he’d been recruited because of his brother. Chris couldn’t join—he was too well known—but he wanted his younger brother to be a part of it.

Alex had started out on unequal footing, and it had taken years for him to climb his way up from the bottom rung. But he’d done it. When he’d left, it hadn’t been his warrior skills that were the problem. Hell, he’d even defeated Boyd, the strongest man in Scotland, in hand-to-hand combat, and no one had done that in years.

Though Alex would like nothing more than to prove himself to Pembroke—a fist through that smug smile would be a good start—he resisted the urge. Alex was here to help put an end to this, damn it. If it meant he had to work with arses like Pembroke to do so, he would. The people in the Borders—his people—had been bearing the brunt of this war for too damned long. No more faces in the flames. So he gritted his teeth and tried again. “I will be the first one to lift my sword if we determine Carrick is alone. Just give me a few minutes to find out.”

“He could be gone in a few minutes,” Sir Robert Felton, the captain of Pembroke’s household knights (and even more of an arse than his lord), interjected. “It doesn’t take long to steal a few dozen head of cattle.” He gave Alex a hard look. “And I’ll take the lead with Kingston, la Zouche, and Vescy. With your sword arm still weak, you won’t be much use to us. You can stay in the back and protect the baggage cart with your men.”