A spellbinding tale of magic, passion, and destiny • “One of the most beautiful love stories I’ve ever read.”—Julie Garwood Blessed with the Welsh gift of “sight,” Lady Arianna saw the vision in a golden bowl: a knight with eyes gray as the English sea that had captured her, his sword about to pierce her heart. And she trembled, not with fear, but with a desire that engulfed her very soul.   On the treacherous border of Wales, Raine, the Black Dragon, rode his charger toward Castle Rhuddlan and the lady within. Illegitimate son of a Norman nobleman, his past was scarred by denial and mistrust, and now his future lay in the conquest of a fiefdom . . . and a woman’s love.   As the battle trumpet sounded, Arianna, her Celtic pride unyielding, saw her dream take flesh: Raine, the enemy who inflamed her blood with desire; Raine, the lover she must gentle and tame, and then, as ancient hatreds threatened their lives, either cherish . . . or betray.   “A wonderful read . . . I was hooked from the first page and the magic continues throughout.”—Johanna Lindsey Penelope Williamson  is an internationally renowned author of historical romance and suspense. Penny was born in Fairbanks, Alaska, and spent the first eleven years of her life as a U.S. Air Force brat. She has a BA in history, an MA in broadcast journalism, and was in the U.S. Marine Corps for six years, where she reached the rank of Captain. She has more than 1.8 million books in print, including The Outsider, Heart of the West, A Wild Yearning, Once in a Blue Moon, and Keeper of the Dream . Penny is a past winner of the Romantic Times 's Best Historical Romance of the Year award and the Romance Writers of America's RITA awards. She lives with her husband in Mill Valley, California. 1     Wales, 1157   The wind carried with it the stench of burning thatch and the anguished wail of a woman’s scream.   A knight on horseback rode through the sacked town. The wind sent an ell of bright ruby silk floating toward him down the muddy road. The cloth snagged a moment on a broken cartwheel before a gust whipped it free, and it was trampled unnoticed beneath his charger’s hooves. But when a pack of squealing rats darted into the road from a smoldering hayrick, the horse reared in alarm. The knight controlled the enormous black beast easily and without thought.   He passed a wall of burning timber, and the flames flickered in the sheen of sweat on his face, flaring in his flint-gray eyes. A spearman darted in front of him, waving a pitch-soaked brand. Laughing, the man called out the knight’s name as he put the torch to a hovel roof and the straw ignited into a fountain of fire. A hail of cinders and shrieks of terror swirled up from inside. But the knight rode on.   The door of a nearby cottage burst open and an archer reeled across the threshold. He stumbled into the knight’s path to sprawl facedown in a puddle, a ploughman’s sickle buried in his back. Rivulets of blood, like spilled wine, ran from his outstretched hands. A sobbing girl crawled after him. Her tunic was ripped down the front, baring small, blue-veined breasts. Yet the knight passed her by without sparing a glance—just as he failed to see the discarded loot of dented pots and burst sacks of grain that littered the way before him.   On he rode with single-minded purpose out the town’s battered gate, where he pulled up within the shadow of the wall.   His brooding gaze followed the rutted road where it wound along the river toward a castle. In the gray twilight the castle’s sandstone walls took on the black- red color of dried blood. It loomed thick and heavy against the rain-sodden clouds, but in the tower, light glowed from a solitary window.   “Rhuddlan …”   The knight spoke the castle’s name aloud, but there was no inflection in his voice. Just as his face—though streaked with marks from his helm and splattered with another man’s blood—bore no expression. It could have belonged to an effigy on a tomb.   He stared a long time at the keep with its frail speck of light. When at last he turned away, it was with a savage, parting promise….   Rhuddlan, you will be mine.     Behind the shuttered window where a light still burned, a young woman cradled a bowl in her palms. It was fashioned of gold and rimmed with a band of pearls, and for a moment, as she held it, the vessel seemed to glow softly and pulse in her hands. But though she calmed her mind and peered into the bowl’s luminescent depths, she beheld only water and a shimmering reflection of the cresset lamps swinging on the wall above her head.   A rough voice barked in her ear. “Do you see anything yet?”   Arianna jerked, slopping water onto her rose silk bliaut. She set the bowl down onto a nearby chest with a clatter, and wiped at the growing wet stain on her skirt. Tossing a fat brown braid over her shoulder, she glared at her brother.   “God’s death. Nothing is likely to happen with you peering at me