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in their arms. He assumed these were ones handpicked by some of his men as prizes of war. Whether they took them home as concubines or thralls, they would not be treated too badly, if they behaved.
    He and Tork stepped before each of the captives, one at a time, and decided whether they would go to the slave marts in Hedeby and Birka or be kept as thralls back at Bear’s Lair. None would go free.
    To one of the young men who could be no more than eleven, he asked, “Your name?”
    “Leif.”
    “Could you swear fealty to me and all the Igorssons at Bear’s Lair?”
    The boy did not hesitate. “Yea, I could. Sigurd forced me to fight for him, lest he kill me mother.”
    “And your mother?”
    He nodded toward the woman beside him. She could be no more than thirty, but she looked sixty, so harsh were the lines that worried her face.
    “These two, back to Bear’s Lair,” he said.
    Soon he was at the end of the line, where a young girl stood, her blonde hair lank, her face gaunt to the point of starvation. A brief glance at him before she swept her lashes downward showed eyes glazed with a dimwittedness that could have come at birth or through vile treatment. One eye was blackened; no doubt she did not follow orders well. What could he do with such a starvling? No one would buy such in the slave markets, and what good would she do them at Bear’s Lair, except another mouth to feed?
    But then he noticed something. Two things, actually. The girl was heavy with child. For Thor’s sake! Another Sigurdsson snake being bred.
    Of a sudden, she stared at him, steady, and his knees nigh buckled.
    “Brandr? What is amiss?” Tork inquired from his side.
    “Oh, my gods!” Erland said at his back, immediately followed by Arnis’s choked out, “Is it . . . ?”
    Brandr could not speak over the lump in his throat and his pounding heart.
    It was his sister Liv.
    She was scarce fourteen now, and she was hugely pregnant.
    And she did not recognize him.
    Still, with tears misting his eyes, Brandr took her up in a tight hug that surprised both of them.
    “Shhh,” he kept murmuring. “Everything will be all right now.”
    But would it be?

You want me to become a sex what . . . ?
     
    “You’re going operational at oh six hundred on Thursday . . . to northern Germany,” Commander MacLean said.
    Joy stood at attention before his desk in the SEALs command center at Coronado, blinking with surprise. She’d come this morning, knowing she might be given an active assignment, thanks to Slick’s hints, but she’d never thought it would be so soon or so extensive. “Yes, Commander, sir.”
    “You’ll be part of a team of six SEALs. A black op. Very covert.”
    “Permission to speak, Commander, sir?”
    “Granted. Stand easy.”
    “Will I be the only woman?”
    He nodded.
    “Why me?”
    “We had someone else. WEALS Ensign Linda Collins, but she discovered she’s pregnant and plans to ring out.”
    Joy knew Linda and that she was going to ring out, but she hadn’t known why. “I repeat, why me?”
    He gave her a full-body look, head to toe and back up again.
    She was wearing Navy requisition shorts, T-shirt, and boots. Her hair was pulled off her face into a tight French braid. She wore no makeup, nothing to attract attention. “You’re best suited for this particular mission.”
    She frowned with confusion. “I’m not nearly as skilled with weapons as some of the others, and there are full-fledged WEALS available.”
    “You’ll be infiltrating a white slave ring.”
    “Huh?” Well, that didn’t sound very professional. I might as well as have said, “Duh.” “Prostitution isn’t the usual SEAL field of interest.”
    “Not prostitution. White slavery. In fact, it’s being run by some fringe Arab terrorist group.”
    “Arab terrorists in Germany?”
    “Pfff! They’re everywhere now. Anyhow, in this particular mission, they’re providing sex for bombs.”
    “You’re kidding.”
    “I wish. Apparently some