Kiss of Surrender

  He paused and then laughed, “Only if we’re both naked.”

  Glossary

  Al Jazeera—Arabic news network.

  Al-Qaeda—Military Islamic organization formed by Osama bin Laden; a terrorist network.

  A-Viking—A Norse practice of sailing away to other countries for the purpose of looting, settlement, or mere adventure; could be for a period of several months or for years at a time.

  Baksheesh—Bribery.

  BDUs—Battle dress uniforms.

  Berserker—An ancient Norse warrior who fought in a frenzied rage during battle.

  Bivouac—A military encampment with tents and improvised shelter.

  Boondockers—Heavy boots.

  Boonie hats—Wide-brimmed hats with loops for hanging vegetation for camouflage.

  BQ—Acronym for bachelors’ quarters.

  Braies—Slim pants worn by men.

  British MI–6—British secret intelligence service.

  BUD/S—Basic Underwater Demolition SEALs.

  Burqa—Enveloping outer garment worn by women in some Islamic countries.

  Catacombs—Ancient human-made subterranean passageways for religious practices or burial.

  CentCom—Central Command.

  Ceorl (or churl)—Free peasant, person of the lowest classes.

  Cher—Male endearment, comparable to friend.

  Collateral damage—Unintended or incidental damage to the intended outcome.

  Cossack—Russian military warriors during czarist times.

  Delta Force—Elite tactical combat group, affiliated with Army but including other service branches, as well.

  Drukkinn (various spellings)—Drunk, in Old Norse.

  Eunuch—Castrated male.

  Extraction Point—Place where military forces are extracted from enemy territory.

  Fibbies—FBI.

  Fjord—A narrow arm of the sea, often between high cliffs.

  Force multiplication—A factor that dramatically increases the effectiveness of a group, including the training of friendlies within an enemy nation to multiply the size of the fighting forces.

  Friendlies—Those within an enemy nation who are friendly to the attackers, e.g., rebels within Afghanistan.

  Gammelost—A pungent Norse cheese with a greenish-brown crust.

  Gig Squad—A punishment inflicted during BUD/S whereby a SEAL trainee is forced after a long day of training to do many vigorous exercises outside the officers’ quarters.

  Grinder—Asphalt training ground in the middle of the SEAL compound in Coronado.

  Gunna—Long-sleeved, ankle-length gown for women, often worn under a tunic or surcoat, or under a long, open-sided apron.

  Haakai—High-level demon.

  High-and-tight—Military haircut.

  Hird—A permanent troop that a chieftain or nobleman might have.

  Hordling—Lower-level demon.

  Houri—Beautiful woman, often associated with a harem.

  Igal—Rope or band used to hold the head scarf in place.

  IM—Instant messaging.

  Imps—Lower-level demons, foot soldiers, so to speak.

  Insertion Point—Place where soldiers insert themselves into enemy territory.

  Jaegers (or jagers)—Jaegerkorpst, Scandinavian special forces.

  Jarhead—Nickname for U.S. Marine due to high-and-tight haircut.

  Jarl—High-ranking Norseman similar to an English earl or wealthy landowner, could also be a chieftain or minor king.

  Jihad—Religious duty, or holy war.

  Kaftan—Silk or cotton, ankle-length and wrist-length garment, buttoned down the front, belted with a sash.

  Karl—High-level Norse nobleman, below a jarl or earl.

  K-Bar—Type of knife favored by SEALs.

  Keep—House, usually the manor house or main building for housing the owners of the estate.

  Keffiyeh—Traditional Arab headdress fashioned from a square of cloth.

  Longship—Narrow, open water-going vessel with oars and square sails, perfected by Viking shipbuilders, noted for their speed and ability to ride in both shallow waters and deep oceans.

  Lucifer/Satan—The fallen angel Lucifer became known as the demon Satan.

  Lucipires/Lucies—Demon vampires.

  Manchet bread—Flat loaves of unleavened bread, usually baked in circles with a hole in the center so they could be stored on an upright pole, like a broom handle.

  Mead—Fermented honey and water.

  Mossad—National intelligence agency of Israel.

  MRE—Meals ready to eat, what used to be called K-rations.

  Mungs—Type of demon, below the haakai in status, often very large and oozing slime or mung.

  Muslim—A religion based on the Koran with the belief that the word of God was revealed through the prophet Mohammed.

  Nithing—A Norse insult meaning that a person was less than nothing.

  Norman Vincent Peale—Famous for his book The Power of Positive Thinking.

  NVG—Night vision goggles.

  O-course—Grueling obstacle course on the training compound, also known as the oh-my-God! course.

  Odin—King of all the Viking gods.

  PEZ—Type of candy available from unusual, mechanical pocket dispensers.

  PT—Physical training.

  Purdah—Practice in certain countries of screening women from men or strangers with all-enveloping clothes.

  Roger—As in “Roger that!” meaning “I understand,” or “I hear you.”

  Runic—Ancient alphabet used by the Vikings and other early Germanic tribes.

  Salaam—Arab greeting meaning “Peace!”

  SAS—British special forces.

  SEAL—Sea, Air, and Land.

  Seraphim—High-ranking angel.

  Shalwar kameez (or gamez or kamiz)—Shalwar is the long shirt of tunic, thigh or knee-length, worn over the kameez which are pajama-style pants with drawstring waists, usually wider on the top and narrow at the ankles. Women would complete this outfit with a loose scarf over the top.

  Shayetet 13—Elite naval commando unit of the Israeli Navy.

  Skald—Poet or storyteller.

  Spetsnaz—Umbrella term of any special forces in Russia.

  Stasis—State of inactivity, rather like being frozen in place.

  Taliban—Islamic military and political organization that rules large parts of Afghanistan.

  Tangos—Bad guys, terrorists.

  Teletransport—Transfer of matter from one point to another without traversing physical space.

  Thobe—Long white robe.

  Thor—God of war.

  Thrall—Slave.

  Tun—Roughly 252 gallons.

  Valhalla—Hall of the slain, Odin’s magnificent hall in Asgard.

  Vangels—Viking vampire angels.

  VIK—The seven brothers who head the vangels.

  WEALS—Acronym for Women on Earth, Air, Land, and Sea.

  Wheels up—Mission under way, plane in the air.

  Zydeco—Type of Cajun music.

  Keep reading for

  a sneak peek at

  KISS OF TEMPTATION

  The next book in

  the Deadly Angels series,

  coming soon

  from Sandra Hill

  and

  Avon Books

  Prologue

  The Norselands, A.D. 850, where men . . . and life . . . were always hard . . .

  Ivak Sigurdsson was an excessively lustsome man.

  Ne’er would he deny that fact, nor bow his head in embarrassment. In truth, he’d well earned his far-renowned wordfame for virility. On his back. On his front. Standing. Sitting. On the bow and in the bowels of a longship. Behind the Saxon king’s throne. Deep in a cave. High in a tree. Under a bush. On a bed. In a cow byre. Once even with . . . Well, never mind, that had been when he was very young and on a dare and another story entirely.

  He liked women. Everything about them. Not just the
sex bits. He liked their scent, the feel of their silky skin, the allure of their secrets, the sound of their sighs and moans, the taste of them. And women liked him, too. He wanted them all.

  You could say lust was a sixth sense for Ivak. He was a Viking, after all.

  He’d been twelve years old when, swaggering with overconfidence, he’d tried his dubious charms on his father’s eighth concubine, who’d laughed herself into a weeping fit afore showing him exactly which hole he should aim for. Now, twenty years and at least two hundred bedmates later—he’d stopped counting after that incident in Hedeby—there was naught he did not know about sex. Men came to him for advice all the time. Women, too.

  The cold Norse winds blew outside his keep now, but he and his comrades-in-arms were warm inside as they sat before one of the five hearth fires that ran through the center of his great hall at Thorstead. Their body heat was aided by the mead they were imbibing and the satiety that comes from having tupped more than the ale barrel, and it not yet eventide.

  When bored and having no wars to fight, or any other time for that matter, taking an enthusiastic maid to the bed furs was always a worthwhile pastime. Leastways, it was for Ivak. You’d think his jaded appetites would have waned by now. Instead, he found himself wanting more and more. And the things he tried these days pushed even his sensibilities for decency . . . but not enough to stop him.

  And, of course, when bored and having no wars to fight, men did what men did throughout time. Drank.

  In fact, Esbe, the widow of one of his swordsmen, walked amongst them now, refilling their horns from a pottery pitcher. When she got to him, she smiled, a small, secretive smile that Ivak understood perfectly. Women told him that he had an aura about him . . . a presence, so to speak. By leaning against a wall just so, or just staring at them through half-slitted eyes, or, gods forbid, winking at them, he sent a silent message. Here was a man who knew things.

  He smiled back at Esbe, who shared his bed furs on occasion, and watched appreciatively, along with every one of his men, as she walked away from them, hips swaying from side to side.

  Another thing men did when bored and having no wars to fight, and especially when drinking, was talk about women.

  “Tell me true, Ivak,” demanded Haakon the Horse, a name he’d been given because of a face so long he could lick the bottom of a bucket and still see over the rim, not because of other bodily attributes. Haakon was a master at swordplay if ever there was one, a soldier you’d want at your back in battle, but an irksome oaf when drukkinn, and he was halfway there already. “There must have been times when your lance failed to rise to the occasion. It happens to the best of men betimes.”

  Ivak exchanged a quick glance with his best friend, Serk the Silent, who sat beside him on the bench. Serk, a man of few words, did not need to speak for Ivak to know that he was thinking: Here it comes!

  Ivak tapped his chin with a forefinger, as if actually giving the query consideration. He could feel Serk shaking with silent laughter. “Nay, it never has, though there have been times I’ve had to take a vow of celibacy to give it a rest.” He cupped himself for emphasis.

  “For how long?” scoffed Ingolf, his chief archer. A grin twitched at Ingolf’s hugely mustached upper lip, knowing when Ivak was about to pull a jest.

  “Oh, a good long time. Two days at most,” Ivak admitted.

  Everyone, except Haakon, found amusement in his jest, including Kugge, the young squire he’d been training of late. Gazing at Ivak in wonder, Kugge blurted out, “Did it hurt?”

  “The celibacy or the excess?” Ivak asked, trying to keep a straight face.

  A blush crept over Kugge’s still unwhiskered face as he sensed having made a fool of himself.

  Ivak patted Kugge on the shoulder.

  Haakon glared at him, his question not gaining the results he’d wanted . . . a fight. Ivak returned Haakon’s glare, his with a silent warning that Haakon thankfully heeded. Haakon stood, tossing his horn to the rushes, and stomped off, hopefully to sleep himself sober.

  Ingolf took a long draught from his horn of ale, cleared his throat, and proclaimed with a chuckle, “To my mind, a man’s cock is like a brass urn.”

  “Oh, good gods!” Ivak muttered.

  “How true!” Serk encouraged Ingolf and nudged Ivak with an elbow to share in his mirth.

  “Now, hear me out,” Ingolf said, stroking his mustache. “Everyone knows that brass needs polishing from time to time, and—”

  “Mine is especially shiny these days since I got me a second wife,” one of the men contributed.

  Ingolf scowled at the interruption and continued, “Of course, a one-handed rub will do to ease the throb, but best it is if the polishing is done in the moist folds of a female sheath’s choke hold.”

  “I don’t understand,” Kugge said to Ivak.

  “It’s a mystery,” Ivak replied with dry humor.

  Ingolf, who fashioned himself a master storyteller, was on a roll now. ’Twas best to let him finish. “The thing about brass is that too much rubbing and it loses its luster. Even grows pits.” Ingolf pretended to shiver.

  “Pits? Like a peach?” Kugge whispered.

  “Nay. Like warts,” Ivak told the boy. “You do not want warts down there, believe you me.”

  “Even worse,” Ingolf told Kugge, “tainted oil in the sheath can spoil all it touches. Remember that dockside whore in Jorvik.” The latter Ingolf addressed to the other men. “Now that was a woman with teeth down there.”

  “She had a lot more than teeth,” Serk remarked, “as many men soon learned.”

  “The difference, my friend, is that some cocks are solid gold.” Ivak motioned a hand downward.

  The other men rolled their eyes and guffawed uproariously.

  “Mine is solid silver,” Bjorn No-Teeth said, his lips twitching as he attempted to hide his gummy smile. “I’m thinking about having it . . . etched. Ha, ha, ha!”

  Others offered their own self-assessments:

  “Mine is ivory, smooth and sleek, and big as an elephant’s tusk betimes. Not that I have e’er seen an elephant.”

  “Mine is a rock. A rock cock.”

  “Mine is iron, like a lance. A loooong lance.”

  “Holy Thor! Do not make me laugh anymore lest I piss my braies.”

  Someone belched.

  Someone else farted.

  More bragging.

  Ivak sighed with contentment. It was the way of men when they were alone with time to spare.

  Their merriment was interrupted by the arrival of Ivak’s steward announcing Vadim, the slave trader from the Rus lands, who had come from Birka before circling back home. He would probably be the last one to make it through the fjords before they were frozen solid for winter.

  Ivak and Serk left the others behind as they went out to the courtyard and beyond that to an outbuilding that usually housed fur pelts. It was empty now, the goods sent to market, and cold as a troll’s arse in a blizzard. He waved to a servant, who quickly brought him and Serk fur-lined cloaks.

  Vadim was a frequent visitor at Thorstead. As often as he dealt in human flesh, Vadim also traded in fine wines, spices, silks, and in Ivak’s case, the occasional sexual oddity . . . dried camel testicles, feathers, marble phalluses, and such.

  Serk joined the steward, who was examining some of the wares on display in open sacks while Ivak, at Vadim’s urging, walked to the far end of the shed.

  “Come, come, see what delights I have for you, Lord Sigurdsson.”

  Ivak was no lord, and he recognized the obsequiousness of the title dripping from the Russian’s lips, but it wasn’t worth the bother of correcting him. “So, show me the delights.”

  Three men were roped together against one wall. Nothing delightful here. An elderly man that Vadim identified as a farmer from the Balkans. With the rocky landscape at Thorstead, Ivak had no need of a farmer and certainly not a graybeard. Next was a boyling with no apparent skills; Ivak passed on him, as well. The t
hird was a young man that Ivak did want—a blacksmith’s apprentice. He and Vadim agreed on a price, although Ivak did not like the angry exchange of words in an undertone between this last man and Vadim that the trader dismissed as of no importance.

  Next came the best part. The delight part. The women. Ivak always enjoyed checking over new female slaves. Serk, who had finished examining the household wares, joined him.

  The five women were not restrained, but they were shivering with cold, or mayhap a bit of fear, not knowing that Ivak would be a fair master. They shivered even more when Vadim motioned for them to disrobe. While Ivak pitied them this temporary chill, he was not about to buy a piece of property without full disclosure. Once he’d purchased a prettily clothed slave in Jorvik only to find she had oozing pustules covering her back, from her neck to her thighs.

  “I see several you would like,” Serk whispered at his side.

  Ivak agreed, a certain part of his body already rising in anticipation.

  The first was clearly pregnant, normally a condition that would preclude his purchase—there were enough bratlings running about the estate, including some of his own—but he had a comrade-in-arms who had a particular taste for sex with breeding women, so he motioned for her to join the young blacksmith at the other end. With an appreciative nod of thanks at her good fortune, she quickly pulled on her robe and drew a threadbare blanket over her shoulders.

  “This one is a Saxon, a little long in the tooth, but an excellent cook,” Vadim said.

  “I already have a cook,” Ivak demurred.

  “Ah, but does she make oat cakes light as a feather and mead fit fer the gods?” the heavy woman of middle years, whose sagging breasts reached almost to her waist, asked in Saxon English. The Norse and Saxon languages were similar and could be understood by either. She’d obviously gotten the meaning of his remark.

  Ivak liked a person with gumption, male or female, and he grinned, ordering her to join the other two. Besides, a Viking could never have enough good mead.

  All the thrall bodies were malodorous from lack of bathing . . . for months, no doubt . . . but this next one—an attractive woman of thirty or so years—had a particular odor that Ivak associated with diseased whores. He gave Vadim a disapproving scowl and moved to the fourth woman.