The Betrayal - By Ruth Langan Page 0,3

sword and drove it deep into the beast’s heart.

The dragon fell back, its eyes fixed on the sun as it emitted a roar that echoed across the heavens. The water ran red with its blood as it slowly sank beneath the waves.

Grant staggered to the shore and lay struggling for breath as the Enchanted Loch stirred and bubbled, before growing calm once more. When he sat up, there was no sign of the dragon. But the water remained bloodred, glistening like rubies.

He tied a length of plaid around his arm to stem the flow of blood. With his sword at the ready, he caught his horse and led it into the loch. Whatever other dangers lay in wait for him, he would meet them with the same unflinching determination. Though he was exhausted from his battle with the monster, he was determined that nothing would keep him from his goal of reaching the Mystical Kingdom and the witches who dwelled therein.

Hearing the distant roar, Nola Drummond looked up from her loom and cast a worried glance at the sky outside her cottage. The heavens were a sea of blue, without a cloud on the horizon.

She hurried to the doorway and called out to her mother, who was cooking over an open fire. “The dragon cries.”

“Aye.” Wilona wiped a sheen of sweat from her brow. “We must summon the lasses home.”

Leaving Bessie to stir the kettle, the two women started across the meadow until they reached a hill, giving them a clear view of the area around them. Lifting their fingers to their lips, they gave the whistle that had always been their signal of impending danger. Minutes later Gwenellen stepped out of the forest, trailed by the little troll, Jeremy, and hurried toward them.

Nola greeted her daughter with a hug. “Where is your sister?”

Gwenellen shrugged. “Knowing Kylia’s love of the water, I’m sure she’s in the loch, or near it.”

Wilona saw the fear that crossed Nola’s face. Drawing an arm around her daughter’s shoulders, and another around her granddaughter, she said soothingly, “Have no fear. Our Kylia’s not one to take foolish risks. Surely she would have heard the dragon’s cry and is even now on her way to the cottage. Come.” Linking hands, she led them across the meadow, with Jeremy running to keep up. All the while she prayed they would soon spy the slender figure of the one they sought awaiting them in the doorway of their home.

Kylia stared in amazement at the bloodred water that washed ashore, staining the hem of her gown. This same thing had happened not a year ago, when a stranger slew the dragon that guarded their kingdom, and forced her older sister, Allegra, to accompany him to his home. What had begun as a fearsome situation had grown into a deep and abiding love between Allegra and her beloved, Merrick MacAndrew. Now Allegra lived with him and his young son, Hamish, in Berkshire Castle, far from the Mystical Kingdom. But they returned often, and Allegra’s family was assured that she had found great joy in that other world.

It had been Kylia who had later found the dragon’s egg, in a nest hidden along the banks of the loch. She had watched the egg hatch, and the tiny dragon grow until it had become, like its forebears, a fierce protector of their land. She felt a heaviness around her heart, thinking about the nest she had recently found, bearing yet another egg. Had the dragon somehow sensed that its time on this earth was nearing an end?

Kylia thought about her grandmother’s favorite expression. To all things there is a season. There was a rhythm to life, Wilona explained. A time to live. A time to die. A time to learn. A time to love.

When would it be her turn? Kylia thought as the water began to churn and bubble.

As if in reply, she saw a shimmering image beneath the waves. Gradually the image came into focus. The face of the man she’d seen dozens of times here in the loch since her childhood. The familiar dark hair, streaming past his shoulders. The gray eyes, deeply troubled. The strong, firm jaw and the cleft in the chin. But instead of fading, as it always had in the past, it came into sharper focus and began to rise up out of the loch.

Now there was more than a face. So much more. There were broad, muscular shoulders and a powerful chest, barely covered by