"Yes."

"When the Wolf questions us, let me give the answers."

"Yes," she said again, her voice quaking.

"I'm not certain what he'll want to know, but it's bound to be something we shouldn't tell him. Perhaps I'll be able to guess why he asks a question and so know when to mislead him."

Dawn had scarcely streaked the sky with pink before two men came to untie them and to allow them both only a few minutes of privacy in the bushes in the woods on the edge of the wide clearing before they retied Jenny and led Brenna off to meet the Wolf. "Wait," Jenny gasped when she realized their intentions, "take me, please. My sister is… er… unwell."

One of them, a towering giant over seven feet tall who could only be the legendary colossus called Arik, gave her a blood-chilling look and walked off. The other guard continued leading poor Brenna away and, through the open flap of the tent, Jenny saw the lascivious looks the men in the camp were giving her as she walked through their midst, her wrists bound behind her.

The half hour Brenna was gone seemed like an eternity to Jenny, but to her enormous relief, Brenna didn't show any signs of having suffered any physical cruelty when she returned.

"Are you all right?" Jenny asked anxiously when the guard had walked away. "He didn't harm you, did he."

Brenna swallowed, shook her head, and promptly burst into tears. "No-" she cried hysterically, "although he grew very angry because I-I couldn't stop w-weeping. I was so very scared, Jenny, and he's so huge, and so fierce, and I couldn't s-stop crying, which only p-pro-provoked him more."

"Don't cry," Jenny soothed. "It's all over now," she lied. Lying, she thought sadly, was beginning to come very easily to her.

Stefan threw back the flap of Royce's tent and walked inside. "My God, she's a beauty," he said, referring to Brenna, who had just departed. "Too bad she's a nun."