Through the misty veil of her half-closed eyes, she saw what appeared to be a great golden lion hovering over her. She might have screamed if she hadn’t felt so drugged and stuporous. Lethargy dragged at her as she tried to move, and a dull pain throbbed near her right breast. The question floating vaguely in her mind was. Where am I? The only sound she heard in the utter stillness was the soft rasp of her own breathing. Her eyes were heavy-lidded and burning with exhaustion. Fighting to stay conscious, she let them droop shut. For several seconds she sank back into dreamy oblivion, drifting in darkness, telling herself she mustn’t let go completely. When she forced her eyes open again, the form above her had transformed from a lion to a man. A man she knew ... The Viking god of her mother’s stories. Stephen Gage towered above her, his eyes tranced as he gazed at something in the distance. The room’s thin light poured silver over his burnished gold hair, and his face was sheened, as though he’d walked through a drenching mist.
