Betrayal Foretold: Descended of Dragons, Book 3

D
edication

T
o E.S.
, L.B., H.L

Third book. Three of you. Too much love to count.

I
t’s
true being an author is sometimes a solitary business, but with exceptional colleagues, friends, and family, it’s not lonely.

To the readers: Oh, the readers of this series have been the best! Thank you so much for supporting me and these books, for following Stella’s journey, for your kind notes and generous reviews. Thank you for recommending this series to your friends. A book isn’t much good without someone to read it, after all.

To the critique partners and beta readers who made this book better, Kathleen Groger, Holly Goslin, and Brooke Ledford: thank you from the bottom of my heart.

To the ever-communicative, generous, and kind Goddess of All Things Indie and Tech, Brinda Berry: I could not have done this without you. Thank you so much for your gentle encouragement, your dexterous texting fingers, and your generous assistance with book trailers and Bookbub and the like.

Thanks to the seasoned professionals who helped with the process: the lovely people at Deranged Doctor Design, Nancy Cassidy with The Red Pen Coach editing, and all of the talented people involved in Diamond State Romance Authors.

Lastly, I always hesitate to say too much about my patient, supportive, and generally wonderful husband. What we have is special, and ours alone. But I can’t make acknowledgements without mentioning him. He’s just too important. Thank you, Babe, for the pride I see in your eyes, for managing our sideshow when I’m meeting a deadline, and for your rock-solid support.

F
ar from Radix
, from Thayer’s capitol city of Caliph, from any concentration of people, Brandubh paced the great room of his castle home. Over the years he’d taken care to furnish the residence with sophisticated art, beautifully inlaid tables and chests, and finely upholstered furniture. Hand-woven rugs scattered the castle’s interior. But no amount of refinery could ever diminish the sharp, reverberant
clomp, clomp, clomping
of angry boot steps as they struck the stone-hewn floor.

The loss of his precious dragons was a mortal blow. Brandubh had eyes everywhere, and his spies had informed him almost the moment it happened. It was no coincidence people descended of rats were so prolific; it took a lot of them to form a network, and they were notoriously short-lived. Stryde and Eiven were lost forever. Bay had fled. And the one creature with the potential to help him finally achieve his goals was alive and well…and alone. He might’ve lost his dragons, for now, but he still had his spies.

And he still had one other very critical ace up his sleeve. Precisely when he would play the pivotal card, he wasn’t yet sure. But his lips slid into that fox-like grin each time it occurred to him how brilliant, how deliciously useful this particular mole had been.

T
ime spent alone is precious
.

It’s cleansing, it’s rejuvenating, it’s fortifying—until it’s not. I had soul-searched and introspected until my deficiencies clung to me like a throng of specters.

Over the last few days, the people of Thayer had learned dragons were not, in fact, wiped out hundreds of years before, and word had spread like wildfire that I was a member of the notoriously villainous species. My world turned upside down in a flash, and the capricious tide of public sentiment turned against me.

I sat, licking deep emotional wounds in the primitive cabin deserted only days before by the three Drakontos dragons—and my relatives—my Grandmother Bay, my Uncle Eiven, and my cousin Stryde. An official Radix committee and the Thayerian authorities conducted searches and quizzed my known associates to learn both my whereabouts and the extent of their knowledge.

My friends had proved faithful and generous in the days since I’d fled our magical grad school, Radix Citadel for Supernatural Learning, or The Root, as most commonly referred to it. But my friends couldn’t be expected to spend every waking moment at my cabin hideaway. Ewan, Boone and Timbra, and sometimes Layla visited when there was no risk of being followed, but it hadn’t been frequently enough to stave off my loneliness.

My arms hung at my sides as I stood in the center of the cabin, too restless to sit, to read, to think. The absence of sound was so prevalent that every tiny noise seemed to roar in contrast: the scratch of a branch against the roof, the
drag-tick
of an old clock, the whistle of wind through the dense forest.

“Hello,” a deep voice called from outside. “Stell?”

Ewan. Thank God.
I raced through the cabin door and found him standing just beyond the front porch. Ewan Bristol rarely deviated from wearing black, and when he did, it wasn’t far. A dark blue V-neck lent contrast to his skin, which tanned easily and well.

I crashed into him, holding him close, and delighted in the solidness of him. Ewan always smelled of the forest, of juniper or fir, and I inhaled his scent while I had the opportunity; before he could leave again. I closed my eyes and absorbed the comfort of his arms, of his warm body.

It wasn’t just that I was so lonely I’d begun talking to the furniture. I missed the sexy squint his eyes took on, the uneven slide of his lips when he thought I was funny or clever. I missed the way his mouth went slack when my top slipped to reveal too much cleavage. I missed his level-headed advice and unyielding support. I missed the way people stopped and listened when he spoke. I missed
Ewan
.

“Hi,” I said and beamed up at him. His pleasure mirrored mine. It was there for me to see, completely unguarded in the depths of his dark eyes.

He kissed me high on the cheekbone before finding my mouth. Think me arrogant if you like, but I’ve always considered Ewan and me the best kissers ever to lay lips on one another. My mouth fit perfectly against his, his full lips complementing my smaller ones. With a groan, he pulled me so tightly into him I gasped for breath. He had missed me, too.

My Radix-issued personal interactive assistant, which I’d named Pia, chirped from the cabin just as I felt a buzz through the fabric of Ewan’s shorts.

“Stella,” Pia called, “you have received a message from Dean Livia Miles.” I shot a questioning glance at Ewan, who shrugged and fumbled in his pocket for his own device.

When I didn’t answer right away, Pia repeated the notification. “Stella, you have received a message from Dean Livia Miles.”

I hurried inside to see what Dean Miles could possibly be sending. The last I’d heard, she was on a vicious rampage to condemn and disgrace me.

When I emerged from the cabin, still scrolling to access the message, Ewan’s posture was bunched, coiled. A toy soldier wound too tight.

I dropped my arms to my sides, still clutching Pia in one hand. “Ewan? Ewan, what’s wrong?”

When he looked up, his dark eyes were black holes within his blood-drained face.

Someone died
. What else could produce such a severe response?

“She…” Ewan cleared his throat. “She sent the entire school your journal entry.”

“What? Who did? What are you talking about? What journal entry?”

His face held such pity. “Dean Miles. She sent the entire campus a student journal entry you wrote detailing your dragon, your family…everything.” Ewan whispered the last. He walked to the fire pit and slid onto a log seat.