God willing, Gavin would beat him to the ground. He only prayed his body would feel the pain that seemed to emanate from his very soul.

Gavin said nothing of Greylen’s appearance, dreadful as it must be. He had discarded his shirt hours ago, having ripped it to strips to tie about his forehead. Then he’d changed them every hour as they became soaked with sweat. Now it lay in a pile of tatters. His hair clung to his scalp and the base of his neck, shorn just days ago as he did with the coming of each full moon.

He could no longer feel the weight of his sword. Nor his legs, encased in breeches and what were once polished boots. He wished he felt nothing at all. But truth be told, he felt betrayed.

Betrayed by the prophecy. Betrayed—by her.

Gavin at last began to circle him, fixing him with a look that brought even the most skilled of fighters to their knees. Greylen engaged. Steel meeting steel as they repeatedly exchanged blows; barely contained murmurs now grunts released with such force the end seemed nowhere in sight.

After what seemed an eternity, Gavin mercifully gave a nod and their men stood. The only men left on the fields. Five of the best men in the Highlands he’d taken as his own over the past fifteen years. But ’twas Gavin’s order that they followed now.

His men would put him out of his self-imposed misery. They’d take him down at last, beat and exhaust him till he ceased to feel. Then he would never feel again. He would never again believe. He knew it as he knew nothing else.

’Twas at that very moment—when defeat seemed so imminent—that the gods showed their grace. Lightning tore through the clearest night sky, and a storm of unnatural force unleashed its power.

And ’twas then that Laird Greylen MacGreggor fell to his knees for the first time in his entire life…witnessing the beginning of his destiny.

Gwen enjoyed the evening of her birthday more than she ever thought possible. A night usually filled with cold assessments of goals attained during the previous year, that night was met with simple contentment. It was a first and welcome respite from the emotional battle that consumed her day.

Scotland was perfect, just as she told Sara. But for some reason, the glorious day to which she awoke filled her with sadness. As if the day should be anything but glorious. She couldn’t put her finger on the exact cause, yet she sensed that the sunshine and warm, calm breeze created a disturbance of some sort. Not an outward one, but one deep within…oddly…her.

It was filled with anger. It was filled with betrayal.

It was only when dusk set in, and an unexpected storm of unnatural proportion swept the coastal inlet, that she finally felt better. It seemed to wash all the foreboding away. As if the world, tipped slightly off its axis, put itself to rights.