Heart of Honor by Kat Martin

around other animals. I think he would like that.” Leif disappeared, and while he was gone, Krista finished her delicious custard. When the meal was over, Leif still had not returned.
    The professor rose worriedly from his chair. “I had better go see what has happened to him.”
    “I had one of the guest rooms prepared,” Krista said. “He should be more than comfortable there.”
    “I’ll bring him inside and show him his quarters.”
    But when her father returned, he was alone. “He was sleeping out in the stable. He has made himself a bed on the straw in one of the stalls. I wasn’t sure I should wake him.”
    After what he had suffered the past six months, it bothered her to think of him sleeping another night in the straw. “Perhaps he didn’t understand. I’ll go explain, tell him he doesn’t have to live like an animal anymore.”
    Her father nodded. He was tired, she knew. So was she. Tomorrow was Monday and she needed to start working on her editorial for this week’s edition. One more article on the benefits of city sanitation and she could return to even more pressing issues.
    A vote was coming up on a proposal that would ban women, young girls and boys from working underground in the mines. Though the act had sprung mostly from concern about public morals after it was discovered women and children often stripped nearly naked to tolerate the heat, she believed the law was a good one.
    Making her way out the door, Krista headed for the stables, still uncertain what to do about Leif.
     
    Leif slept deeply. He dreamed of home, as he often did, thinking of the life he had left behind. In truth, he never should have left the island. His friends would still be alive and he would not be trying to make his way in a hostile world completely foreign to him. Still, now that he was free, he had begun to see the world he had once hoped to discover, and leaving Draugr grew more difficult to regret.
    Then again, had he remained, he would not be aching with need for a woman, dreaming of soft, feminine curves and full breasts, of golden hair that could make a man hard just to think of touching it.
    A voice floated toward him in the darkness, drifted into his dreams. He remembered then that Inga had come to his bed tonight and he had taken her until both of them were wildly sated. He was half-awake now, hard again, and ready for more. When she touched his shoulder, shook him a little, he knew she must be ready, as well.
    He reached for her, pulled her down in the pile of straw and rolled her beneath him, then began to massage a plump, round breast as he kissed the side of her neck.
    “You were always a woman of passion, Inga, but tonight—”
    Her shriek of outrage nearly burst his ears. Leif jerked away from her, fully awake now, blinking owlishly and remembering that he was no longer on Draugr, but in a place called London.
    “How dare you!”
    He was in London, not Draugr, and the ripe breasts he had been caressing belonged to the voluptuous blonde.
    “I was dreaming. I thought you were someone else.”
    “Someone else!” she screeched. “Someone else!” She straightened and looked down her very nice nose at him. Even angry, she was beautiful, with the finely carved features of a Norsewoman, the graceful neck and full lips. “This is the third time you’ve insulted me, Leif of Draugr. You will apologize right now or you will leave this house and not return!”
    His jaw hardened. He had nowhere to go. He needed these people’s help and yet he would not be commanded by a woman, no matter how comely she was.
    “I am not sorry I touched you. Only that you did not wish me to. For that I apologize, lady.”
    He was still wearing the uncomfortable trousers that molded his hips and legs like skin. But he had unbuttoned the front and now he was afraid she would see what she had done to him. He came up out of the straw, turned away from her a moment and struggled to rebutton the trousers.
    In the dim light of a