Reborn: The Duke's Obsession-Chapter 272 - Two Hundred And Seventy Two

A cruel, triumphant smile spread across Philip's face as he looked down at the man writhing beneath his boot. Eric grunted in pain, the pressure on his stomach wound a white-hot, blinding agony.

"Your leg…" Eric gasped, his voice a hoarse whisper. "How come your leg is…"

Philip interrupted him by applying more pressure, twisting his heel into the wound. "Why do you want to know?" he taunted, his voice a low, chilling drawl. "You're about to die so that information is useless."

A raw scream was torn from Eric's throat. The world narrowed to a pinprick of excruciating pain. He repeatedly, weakly, hit Philip's leg with his fists, but the blows had no force. His screams filled the eerie quiet of the woods, a desperate sound of pure suffering.

Inside the wrecked carriage, the world swam back to Delia in hazy, disjointed fragments. The throbbing in her head was a merciless drumbeat. She slowly became aware of her position—half of her body was inside the carriage, her legs tangled in her skirt and the ropes that bound her legs lying on the floor, while her other half was slumped outside on the damp, cold earth. She saw two figures on the road. And then she heard the scream.

Seeing Eric on the ground, pinned and fighting for his very life, was like a bolt of lightning to her hazy mind. The fog of her concussion cleared instantly, replaced by a surge of pure, undiluted adrenaline. 𝘧𝓇𝑒𝑒𝑤ℯ𝑏𝓃𝘰𝑣ℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

"Eric?" she whispered, her voice cracking. "Eric!"

She looked down and saw that the ropes on her wrists were already loosened. With a surge of desperate strength, she pulled her hands free. She crawled the rest of the way out of the carriage, her own pain forgotten.

"Eric! Eric!" she cried, scrambling towards him on her hands and knees before finding the strength to stand. Without a moment's hesitation, she ran at Philip and pushed him with all her might.

Caught off balance, Philip stumbled back, his boot slipping from Eric's wound. It was all the opening Delia needed. She dropped to the ground beside her husband, gently lifting his head and cradling him in her lap.

Tears flowed freely down her eyes, splashing onto his pale, sweat-soaked face. He was gasping for air, his eyes clouded with pain.

She looked up at Philip, her gaze filled with a hatred so pure it was almost a physical force. "How could you do this to your own brother?" she spat, her voice trembling with rage. "You are truly a despicable monster."

She looked back down at Eric, her expression softening into one of desperate tenderness. She gently patted his head, smoothing his damp hair back from his forehead. "Eric! Eric, hold on, please," she sobbed. "Just hold on."

Philip, who had regained his footing, watched the scene with a look of cold contempt. Her defiance, her love for Eric—it was all an insult to him. He strode over, and his hand lashed out. The slap was a brutal, cracking sound that echoed in the quiet woods. The force of it snapped Delia's head to the side, causing her to fall sideways, away from Eric.

He grabbed a fistful of her hair, yanking her head back, pulling her away from Eric as she screamed in protest and pain. Her eyes, red from crying, stared up at him in terror.

"What right does a woman like you have to question me?" he sneered, his face a mask of cruelty. He hit her again, an open-handed blow across the other cheek. She fell hard to the ground, the impact knocking the wind from her.

" I am not Eric." He said. " I don't tolerate any form of disrespect."

She instinctively clutched her stomach. "It hurts," she murmured to herself, a sharp, cramping pain spreading through her abdomen. Blood trickled from her nose from the force of his slaps.

Watching this from the ground, Eric felt a pain far worse than his bullet wound. He was helpless. He was watching the monster he had failed to stop destroy everything he loved. A weak, rattling scream escaped his lips. "Philip…" he gasped, his voice barely audible. "Let her go. It's me you want. Come at me. Kill me, but please…" his voice broke into a desperate, ragged sob, "…let her go."

Philip paid no heed to Eric's pathetic pleas. He walked slowly towards Delia, who was still curled on the ground, trying to protect her unborn child. "Looks like it's time you join your husband," he said, his voice devoid of all emotion. He pulled the pistol from his coat again. Delia watched in horror as he calmly reloaded the weapon, the metallic click of the chamber a death sentence.

He raised the pistol, aiming it down at her.

But before Philip could pull the trigger, something impossible happened. Eric moved. Fueled by the instinct of a husband and father, of love and rage, he ignored the searing agony in his body. His eyes, wild and desperate, found a large, jagged rock on the ground beside him. His fingers closed around it. With a grunt that seemed to come from the very depths of his soul, he used all of his remaining strength to push himself up, to stagger to his feet.

He was a walking dead man, held together only by sheer force of will. He took one unsteady step, then another, and brought the rock down with all his might on the back of Philip's head.

The pistol fell from Philip's nerveless fingers as he staggered forward, a look of stunned disbelief on his face. Before he could turn, Eric punched him again, a wild, desperate blow that sent him sprawling to the floor.

Eric fell with him, his own strength gone. He landed on top of his brother, grabbed his collar with one hand, and with the other, he began to punch. He punched until his knuckles were bloody, until all the fight had left Philip's body, until his brother finally, mercifully, passed out.