But it didn't come.

Half in fear and half in morbid curiosity, she slowly opened her eyes and for the first time, she actually saw His Face. The demonic specter that towered before her nearly made her scream with terror: He was huge. Enormous. His hair was black and his black cloak was billowing out behind him, blowing eerily in the wind as if it had a life of its own. Firelight danced across his swarthy, hawklike features, casting shadows that made him look positively satanic; it blazed in his strange eyes, heating them until they glowed like molten silver coals in his bearded haggard face. His shoulders were massive and broad, his chest incredibly wide, his arms bulging with muscle. One look at him and Jenny knew that he was capable of every vile thing he'd been accused of doing.

Die bravely! Die swiftly!

She turned her head and sank her teeth into his thick wrist.

She saw his blazing eyes widen a split second before his hand raised, then crashed against her cheek with a force that snapped her head sideways and sent her sprawling to her knees. Instinctively, Jenny quickly curled herself into a protective ball, and waited, eyes clenched shut, for the deathblow to befall her, while terror screamed through every pore of her quaking body.

The voice of the giant spoke above her, only this time it was more terrible because it was so tautly controlled that it hissed with muted fury: "What in the hell have you done?" Royce raged at his younger brother. "Haven't we problems enough without this! The men are exhausted and hungry, and you bring in two women to further fire their discontent."

Before his brother could speak, Royce turned to issue a sharp command to the other man to leave them, then his gaze slashed to the two prone female figures lying at his feet, one of them in a dead faint, the other curled into a ball, trembling so violently that her body shook as if in the throes of convulsions. For some reason the quaking girl enraged him more than her unconscious counterpart. "Get up!" he snapped at Jenny, nudging her with the toe of his boot. "You were brave enough a minute ago, now get up!"