Hearts Aflame Read Free

answer that threat, but stooped to pick up the clothes at her feet and toss them over her shoulder. Without taking her eyes from Dirk, she reached behind her for Torden’s reins and backed away with her horse. When she was several feet away, she gripped Torden’s silky white mane and leaped onto his back, setting him to heel instantly.
    Behind her she could hear Dirk’s angry curses, but she gave no thought to that, worrying now only about wiggling into her clothes without slowing the steed, before she reached the Haardrad settlement and someone saw her. She would never be able to explain, and the truth would find her with severe restrictions placed on her freedom, and Dirk Gerhardsen in a heap of trouble.
    If it weren’t for those restrictions she would confess what had happened, but she valued her freedom too much. Her father worried about her enough as it was. Her mother didn’t, for Brenna had taught her well to protect herself all those many summers when her father had sailed to trade his goods, taking her brothers with him. Brenna had taught Kristen in secret all that she had learned from her own father: the skill and cunning necessary to wield a weapon against a mightier foe, the cunning because even though Kristen was nearly half a foot taller than her mother, and her strength was greater than that of most women, she still lacked the strength of a man.
    Kristen was proud of her ability to protect herself, butthis was the first time she had ever had need to test that ability. She could not openly wear weapons the way a man did, for her father would be furious if he knew what her mother had taught her. She did not want to wear weapons anyway, for she was just as proud of her femininity.
    Kristen was loved and cherished and protected by her family. Besides her brother Selig, who was two years older than she, there was Eric, who had seen sixteen winters now, and Thorall, who had seen fourteen, and they were both nearly as big as their formidable father already. She also had her cousin Athol, who was only a few months older than Selig, and dozens of other second and third cousins from her father’s side of the family who would fight to the death at even the slightest insult to her. No, she was well protected and did not need to prove herself as her mother had felt the need to do when she was Kristen’s age.
    Until today. If only she were sailing with Selig and his friends next week to the market towns in the East, then she wouldn’t have to worry about Dirk again—at least, not until she returned at the end of the summer. By then he could well have found himself a wife and lost the inclination to bother her again.
    Alas, she had already asked to go on this trading voyage and had been refused. She was too old now to sail with so many young men, even if it was one of her father’s ships, with Selig in charge. If Garrick wasn’t going, then she wasn’t going and that was that. Even her teasing hint that she might meet another merchant prince like him in Birka or Hedeby and bring home a husband, had not swayed him. If he couldn’t be there to look after her as he had done the three times he had let Kristen and her mother sail with him, then, by Odin, she was staying home.
    Garrick had not sailed these last eight years, preferring to spend the warm summer months with Brenna, letting his friend Perrin command his ship, or Selig, now that he was old enough. Kristen’s parents would ride north, alone, and not return until summer waned. They hunted together, explored, and loved, and Kristen dreamed of a relationship like theirs for herself. But where was there a man like Garrick, who could be gentle with those he loved, but oh so dangerous and threatening to those he did not, who could make her heart beat faster the way Brenna’s did when she simply looked at Garrick?
    Kristen sighed and rode for home. There wasn’t such a man, not here. Oh, there were a few gentle men, but not many, though there were many who could