Loki's Daughters

4 1/2 Stars Romantic Times!The Vikings are coming. And these men don't have rape and pillage on their minds. They mean to stay, and take wives. The easy way or the hard way.When Celtic maid Arienh surprises a Viking in the hills, she thinks she's doomed. In the downhill chase, she stabs him and escapes, leaving him to die in the rain and mud. But he doesn't die, and instead forces his way out of the freezing rain into her cottage. Meaning to calm him and protect her Celtic village from potential violence, Arienh tends his wound. But the dying man confuses her with his teasing, and in the middle of the night wakes her with a kiss and the bizarre assertion that she belongs to him.Not in her lifetime. Torn by rage and loss from years of predation by Vikings, with all the men in her village and family lost to Viking raids, Arienh has poured her life into protecting the remaining women and children of her village. She hates Vikings. She would never submit to one. And she will never forgive.Ronan knows she doesn't recognize him, but he has never forgotten her. As a young boy he was forced to join his cruel uncle in his marauding, and during a raid on her village Ronan sacrificed his only chance of escape to hide Arienh from his Viking kin. He has finally found her again, only to be wounded at her own hand. How can he prove he is not like other Vikings when he has brought more of his kind with him and they all have the same intention, to take over the land of the village women who hate them, and worse, turn them all into wives?