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pecker.
    She stiffened and tried to wriggle away.
    “Nay.” He kneaded her shoulders. “Before Bagan One-Eye went to Niflheim, he spoke of his seven brothers who have taken over Castle Caerleah at your uncle’s invitation. If aught happens to you, your uncle’s eldest daughter inherits the lands and castles. Your uncle agreed to wed his daughter to any man who rends your maidenhead and burns you at the stake.”
    Nyssa curled her lip. “That coward. My uncle, Ánáton, is afeared of his own shadow, and his eldest daughter, Monette, is a witch. And a greedy one at that. Bagan One-Eye intended to kill me then?”
    She shifted her toes on the sand, arched her neck, and sighed when her aching muscles eased under the Viking’s steady massaging.
    “Aye.” Konáll slid the cloth lower and rubbed small circles around her belly button. Her stomach rippled at the tingling sensation.
    “Are you ill, Nyssa?”
    “Nay.” She shook her head. “’Tis wondrous. For so long, if a man so much as brushed against me, I would vomit for days.”
    He brushed his lips over the cusp of her shoulder. “Your face has lost the green twinge, and you are no longer as stiff as a metal rod. Methinks it time to have you find your woman’s pleasure.”
    Tension stiffened her backbone. “What of the curse?”
    “Tis time to break it.” He turned her around and set his lips to hers. Warm breath skittered over her damp cheeks. Her skin heated at the sizzling silken contact.
    She set her palms to his chest, pushed to break the strange sensation of his mouth on hers, and met his stare. “I have much fear of this, Viking. I am not like other women. I do not lust after men. I have no desire to couple.”
    “Shh.” He touched a finger to her lips. “Close your eyes and give over to me. I will not do anything you do not wish.”
    “And what if I wish you to stop, right now?”

 
     
     
    Chapter Three
     
    “Nyssa, want you to die at the stake?” Konáll blew on her ear.
    She yanked her shoulder up to ward away the caress and puckered her forehead to squint at him. “Know you any sane person who yearns to be burned alive?”
    Only his warrior training stopped him from shaking her senseless. Did she never stop replying to one query with another? “Answer me.”
    “I can find no way to break the curse. Trust me, Konáll. I have thought long and hard on this since the day I learned of it. Thrimilici is upon us.” Her voice broke on a choked sob.
    She had called him by name. Odd, that should please him so. He traced the line of her chiseled arm. “I bear the ring of the Saracen.”
    The brisk breeze didn’t whisk away her audible gasp and that, too, pleased him. Beneath his palm, her muscles twitched. Slowly, she turned to face him.
    At that moment the moon shed her clouds and beamed a silvery stream of dazzling brilliance. His belly knitted. How had he not seen her beauty? She wore the allure of elves and pixies combined. The shorn hair should have lessened her womanhood, yet the silken, jagged edges somehow enhanced features of absolute perfection.
    Wide eyes framed by thick fringes of muddy brown lashes stared at him, streaks of amber threaded through a gray only a threatening storm cloud could claim, and twin dark points punctuated the middles. Ash brows rose, and her nostrils flared.
    She spoke, the words drowned by a squalling flock of white gulls flying over them.
    Undeterred he continued to study her face. The nose mayhap a tad too arrogant for flawlessness, the cheekbones high, ridged and dusted with a hint of shyness and full, pouting lips the color of ripe raspberries. He loved raspberries. His cock throbbed.
    “I did not hear you, Nyssa. Say again.”
    “’Tis the truth you speak, Viking? You wear the Saracen’s ring?” Her eyes were luminous and nigh as dark as coals.
    “Aye.”
    “Mayhap ’tis why I can bear your touch.”
    “Mayhap.” Mús had warned that e’en if Nyssa’s bile did not rise, she was cursed to