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daughter,” Thorne said. “ ’Tis best you forget Fiona. She is my thrall now, to do with as I please. Be thankful that I have spared your village instead of destroying it and selling the people into slavery. My men willdeal fairly with them so long as they obey the laws I set forth.”
    Fiona tried to keep panic at bay but the prospect of leaving her home was daunting. She sent a desperate look at Brann, even though she knew he could do nothing to save her.
    “Hold!” Fiona was shocked when the old man stepped directly in front of Thorne the Relentless, his slight body dwarfed by the golden Viking. “Take me with you, Lord Viking.”
    “Why would I want a scrawny specimen like you,” Thorne jeered, “when I could have my pick of sturdy peasants?”
    “Because I have powers that none of your people possess. One day you will have need of me, Thorne the Relentless, this much I know.”
    “Witchcraft!” Ulm said, backing away from the bearded old man. “We do not need the likes of him.”
    “Aye, you
will
need me,” Brann predicted. His dark eyes burned with inner fire, as if he saw things others did not. “I will retrieve my medicines and potions from my cottage and return shortly.”
    “Why do you wish to leave your home, old man?” Thorne asked suspiciously. “If you mean us harm, I will kill you myself.”
    Brann glanced at Fiona and his expression softened. “My reasons are clear, Lord Viking. No harm must come to Fiona. I cannot stop you from taking her, but I will do everything in my power to see that she is kept safe. And I tell you this with all certainty: the day will come when you will have need of my special powers.”
    “Very well, get your potions, magician. But heed me well, neither you nor Fiona will receive special treatment. You are both thralls, nothing more, and will be treated like my other slaves.”
    “Brann, don’t sacrifice yourself for me,” Fiona threw over her shoulder as Thorne’s men led her away.
    “Be at peace, Fiona, all will be well,” Brann assured her. He sounded so utterly sincere that Fiona’s trembling eased somewhat. “I will be with you anon,” he said as he hurried away.
    Thorne’s face wore a worried frown as Fiona was hustled away to his dragon ship. Intuition told him he was making a grave mistake, that he was inviting trouble. The kind of trouble he’d never known before. Thorne realized his family wasn’t going to be happy with this turn of events. They fully expected him to kill the witch and return home free from enchantment. That had not happened, however. If anything, he was even more captivated than before. He hoped enslaving Fiona was the answer, since he couldn’t bring himself to kill her.
    Then another thought occurred to him. Would taking her body and sating himself on her sweet flesh break the spell? It was worth considering. Odin and the gods knew how desperately he wanted her. The only thing that kept him from ravishing her was the certain knowledge that once …
    Would not be enough.
    He had a consuming fear that once he appeased his lust, his obsession with Fiona would grow until she owned …
    His soul.

Chapter Three
     
    Fiona huddled, numb with cold and miserable, on the planked deck of the dragon ship beneath the meager protection of the tent Thorne had ordered erected for her and Brann. Thorne’s flagship was the largest of the five, being seventy-six feet long and about seventeen feet wide. There was sufficient room for sixteen oarsmen to sit on their sea chests on either side of the ship. Fiona had learned much about these fierce Viking warriors since being taken from her home and dragged aboard Thorne’s ship.
    She discovered that the Vikings stored their plunder and supplies in the space beneath the removable pine plank deck, some six and a half feet deep. Their meals while at sea consisted of dried and salted food, and they drank from leather waterbags stored beneath the planks.
    Fiona hadn’t known what to expect once