Prologue: Morag of the Loch: The Highlands Travelers: Blood, Love & Fire, #1

By Mackensie McRae

Spoilers Alert! This short novel is the prologue to an upcoming trilogy. It is set in the present -day Scottish Highlands... as well as 700 years ago! There is a romance fiction component between the American character and the Highlands characters, as well as a fantasy component featuring mythical creatures and time travel. As seems to be the case with most of the best "prequels," this prologue was written after Book 1, which will be realeased Labor Day weekend, 2022.

• Language: English
• Publisher: LMG Publishing
• Release date: Aug 12, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201070410

Mackensie McRae

The McRae "clan" hails from the Highlands area of Scotland themselves. So Mackensie has taken some of the tales she's heard since childhood and mixed them together with a generous helping of her own imagination to create a fantastic "World of Dreams" and her first book series!

Book preview

Chapter 1

I ’m in Heaven! I sighed and let my backpack drop to the ground.

My best friend, Beth DuBois, slammed the passenger van’s sliding door shut, saw what I was looking at, and groaned. We’re in the middle of nowhere!

That’s what’s so great about it. I went back to gazing at the view. We have the whole place to ourselves.

The sun was going down behind the surrounding hills. Pastel colors shimmered on Loch Morar’s glassy surface in the far western Scottish Highlands. That rim of peaks was the last piece of land separating us from the Atlantic Ocean.

"What about that? Beth shot a sneer behind me. You won’t be in Heaven there."

I glanced behind me to see her glaring at the tiny inn across the road. It looked more like a one-room cabin with a single matchbox window winking out of the upper story.

Now that Beth pointed it out, the inn made the landscape appear even more desolate. This inn was the only building for miles in any direction and I shivered. Maybe she was right and coming to the middle of nowhere wasn’t such a brilliant idea.

All those doubts vanished from my mind when I turned back the other way and saw the loch again. The dark hills, the gleaming water, the sky changing from azure to soft green and finally midnight blue—it all enchanted me.

I could forget all my worries gazing over the loch to the mountains beyond. This vacation was the perfect escape from my troubles back home.

Why don’t you spend the night out here? Beth grumbled and instantly changed her tune. Heads up! she whispered. Incoming!

I checked behind me again and relaxed when a young man in beaten canvas pants strode toward us. He came from behind the inn so he couldn’t have been inside it.

He grinned at us under tousled dark hair that hung over bright black eyes. His broad, round face crinkled up in a cheery, boyish grin that betrayed plenty of mischief and fun.

He held out his hand for Beth’s bag. I’ll take yer bags up to the inn for ye. Ye lassies want tae go inside straight away or ye’ll miss out on the only decent meal of the day.

He spoke in that broad, thick brogue of a born Highlander. His callused hands still bore a rim of black dirt around the horn of his thumb and under his fingernails. A hammer hung from a loop in his pants and dried mud clung to his work boots.

Beth didn’t notice anything about him. She squinted up at the inn. "What is for dinner?"

Only a bit of haggis and liver for pudding. The guy shot me one of his mischievous grins behind Beth’s back. Mrs. MacNabb always includes a dollop of eyeball soup for the extra special guests.

I laughed, but Beth practically screamed in horror. Ugh! That’s disgusting! We can’t stay here. Come on, Taya. It probably isn’t too late to call the van back. We can stay at Fort William instead.

I’m only joking, he told her. Ye’ll no hae nought to complain o’ the food. Mrs. MacNabb’ll see to that. I’m Rob MacPherson. I’m the MacNabbs’ hired hand. If ye lassies need anything during yer stay, ye’ve only to sing out.

The guy tried for the second time to take Beth’s bag, but she yanked it away and recoiled from him. She probably would have screamed again, but at that moment, the house door opened.

A different guy stepped out and strode down the path toward us. This guy was taller and not as powerfully built as Rob, but he didn’t have a speck of dirt on him anywhere.

He kept his sandy hair pulled back in a ponytail behind his neck and he wore a traditional kilt with all the trimmings including a swath of tartan across his chest.

A deep navy jacket buttoned over his white shirt and a sealskin sporran hung around his hips. Two little flags of tartan stuck out from the rim of his white knee socks.

He definitely didn’t grin. He glared at Rob, barged between him and Beth, and yanked her backpack out of Rob’s grip. None of yer jokes! Get back tae work and dinnae harass the guests or ye’ll be out on yer backside before ye ken what ye’re doing.

Rob’s grin vanished instantly. A flash of defiance flared in his deep, dark eyes, but he erased it just as fast and turned away. His shoulders slumped in defeat and he mumbled, Yes, Sir.

He shot me one last significant glance before he walked back to the inn. He walked around the side of the building and vanished behind it, but that last look struck a chord in me. Did it mean something?

The guy in the kilt turned to me and Beth. He replaced his previous glare as if it were never there and he grinned. Dinnae mind the help. He doesnae ken his place, but I’ll see tae it that he doesnae bother ye during yer stay. I’m Keith MacNabb. I’ll take yer bags up tae the inn.

He wasn’t bothering us, I told him. He was only trying to help.

Keith snorted in Rob’s direction. He doesnae ken how tae help. Believe me. I hae had nought but trouble from him since he came intae our service. I’d no hae him at the inn at all if he didnae play on me old mum’s sympathy. I’ll be taking over the running o’ the inn in a few years. Then I’ll pack the blighter off tae wherever it is blighters go when they cinnae conduct themselves around decent folk. Mark me words. But enough o’ him. Ye lassies dinnae want tae hang about here for much longer. It’s getting cold and ye’ll be wanting yer dinner.

He slung Beth’s backpack over his shoulder and went to take mine, but I had already swung it onto my back and was moving up the path to join him and Beth.

He grinned again,