My Wild Horse King (The Russian Witch's Curse Book 4)

23. Katerina

I’ve never been kissed.

With Alexei, we both knew we were faking. It wasn’t common to kiss back then anyway, and the last thing I was going to do was kiss someone who wanted to dump me. With Leonid, we were also faking, so the one time our mouths touched, it’s because I shoved my face against his to hide another misstep.

My only kiss, up until now, was a total lie. Everything in my life has been a lie.

Dating Alexei.

Fake-dating Leonid.

It was all nonsense.

But in the past few hours, I’ve realized that I like Gustav.

It’s boring of me, to be honest. I mean, of course I like the tall, handsome, smart, accomplished man with the beautiful abs and the magical powers. The one man who could conceivably take all the powers we know about and defeat Leonid. The one man who might actually be able to keep me safe from anyone who threatens me, if only we can get his magic working.

Of course I like him.

I’m so predictable, like a monkey always chasing the higher branch.

The others have reason to mock me.

But when he kisses me, my heart soars. When I’ve seen people kiss in movies, it always sends a little thrill through my whole body. They press their mouths together, of all things. It makes no sense, if you’re thinking about it objectively. I mean, that’s where we put food. We speak from our lips and with our tongue. Why would we want to press them against someone else’s?

Madness.

But when Gustav shifts to fill the space right in front of me, drops the saddle to the ground, and his hands grab my upper arms. . . When his head lowers over mine. . .

My breath catches.

My eyes close.

And his mouth finally closes over mine. Every single nerve ending in my body sets fire. My knees stop working, and I nearly collapse, but his arms tighten around me, bringing me closer. His mouth moves over mine, and then his tongue darts into my mouth, like a tiny conqueror.

It’s the most electric thing I’ve ever experienced, and I harness the power of lightning, until the voices we heard come closer, and Gustav freezes. I’m terrified that he’ll pull away until he kisses me with even more fervor.

That’s when I realize that it’s fake.

For once in my life, I thought someone actually liked me. He said it was real. But just like the others, he’s kissing me to avoid having to explain our reasons for being here to some errant teenagers chasing their dog.

The boy makes a sort of snorting sound, and the girl giggles, and then they rush past us.

Once they’re gone, I shove away.

“Well, that worked.” I wipe my mouth on the back of my hand. “I can’t say it was exactly sanitary, though.”

Gustav’s face falls.

Was I too blasé? Is there a chance he kissed me, at least in part, because he wanted to?

“You better shift fast, or I may have to kiss you again.” Whatever I imagined, there’s no trace of it. His face is one hundred percent mocking.

I nod, and I turn away so he can’t see how gutted I am. And then I shift into the good little horse he needs me to be. I can’t look at him while he saddles me. I force myself to act like what I am—a means to an end. A horse he’ll ride to get the attention of the woman who hopefully has the journals we need so he can learn how to defeat Leonid.

The man I alerted to his whereabouts.

Or, you know, the man I tried to rat out.

At least the weather’s brisk as we head for the Daggett County Fairgrounds. The wind keeps me from being too hot, and now that he’s got a saddle, Gustav feels remarkably balanced on my back. Riding a horse isn’t quite like riding a bike, but a lot of it does come back when you restart. Hopefully he’ll manage to do reasonably well as we add speed to the mix. We walk for a bit, then we trot a while, and eventually, he asks me to speed up, so I canter a ways down the side of the road.

A few passengers in cars and trucks gawk at us, but not too many. I doubt trail riders are rare in this area. It’s probably just strange that we’re out alone, or perhaps that no one knows us.

When we reach the fairgrounds, already warmed up, Aleks has checked us in, and we stand and watch as the other barrel racers run the pattern a time or two. Other than Gustav, there don’t appear to be any boys riding. I’m not sure how to ask about that, but another thing I’ve noticed is that the girls don’t seem to be very consistent on which direction they go around the first barrel.

Some take the left one first.

Some take the right.

I turn to catch Gustav’s eye, and then I toss my head to the left. Then to the right. I’m worried he’ll have no idea what I’m saying, but he nods.

“Hey.” He catches the eye of one of the riders who’s leaving through a narrow alleyway. “Does it matter which direction you take that first barrel?”

The rider’s smile is disbelieving. “Hasn’t anyone taught you to ride the pattern?”

“Um,” Gustav says. “Not exactly.”

She looks heavenward and mutters something I can’t quite catch under her breath. “Come with me.” She tosses her head, and Gustav spins me around to follow.

I’m a little worried she’s going to report us to someone. She’s a tiny little girl. She doesn’t look like she’s even twenty yet, and she looks like she weighs less than fifty kilos. Her light blonde hair’s pulled into a ponytail that streams down behind a blue cowboy hat. (Or is it a cowgirl hat, with a girl wearing it?) Her horse’s tiny, too, a sorrel mare with a floofy white-blonde mane that looks fully twice as thick as any other horse’s mane I’ve seen in my life.

“I’m Emery,” she says. “And that’s my cousin.” She points with her free hand. “Whitney’s the best barrel racer here, and she always wins. But the great thing about barrels is that they have different brackets. So even if you don’t make 1D, you can still win money in 2D or even 3D.”

“But how?” Gustav asks.

Whitney has walked up, atop a big, brassy chestnut gelding with a gorgeous face blaze. She doesn’t look much bigger than Emery, but on her horse, she towers over her cousin. “What’s going on?”

“This poor guy’s never barrel raced. He was asking me if it matters which barrel they take first.” Emery purses her lips.

I expect Whitney to laugh.

She smiles. “Ah, your first barrel race is the most fun.” When she starts talking, she looks way less fierce than I expected. “You should definitely run a round or two before we go, though. The idea is to rate around the barrels.”

“Rate?” Gustav must be frowning, because both Whitney and Emery laugh.

Emery takes over again. “It means slowing the horse down a little. You have to make them a pocket on the far side, too, so they don’t just crash right into the barrel when you go to turn.”

“Okay,” Gustav says.

“What made you want to run in the race if you’ve never done it?” Whitney asks.

Gustav sighs. “There’s this woman in town, and my dad managed to really make her mad, but I need to ask her a favor.”

Both girls’ eyes widen.

“It’s not about money,” he’s quick to say. “I just need to see if she has some old family stuff I think she may have held on to, and I don’t even want to take it. I just need to look at it.”

“Who is it?” Emery asks.

“Her name’s Amanda Saddler,” Gustav says, speaking quickly. “I think she’s a sponsor for the rodeo, and I’m hoping she’ll be here and we can try to talk to her again.”

“You already tried once?” Whitney asks.

Gustav nods. He shifts in the saddle, and I can tell he’s uncomfortable by the whole thing, but he’s doing things right. These girls clearly know Amanda, and they seem inclined to like Gustav. I’m not surprised. What’s not to like? He may be too old for them, but he’s good looking, and he’s nice.

“After you’re done racing, we might be able to get her attention,” Emery says.

“Do you know her?” he asks.

Both girls giggle. I’m taking that as a yes.

“You do?” Gustav sounds so clueless.

I stomp my foot.

“She’s our grandma,” Whitney says. “I’d say we know her, yes.”

“Oh.” Gustav nods, a little embarrassed. And then it’s our turn, apparently. Based on our draw number, we have a certain warm-up time. Gustav guides me with his feet, mostly, and a little with the reins, but I do appreciate how careful he is not to pop me in the mouth.

Before I know it, we’re just outside the small dirt arena. Another horse—a large grey, is lining up, and then he’s shooting through the alleyway, almost rearing back in his glee, it appears.

“A lot of horses get hot in the alley,” Whitney says. “It’s pretty common for the ones who love to race, but if you’re not careful, they can get so excited it’s hard to get them to go in. You’ll want to do everything you can to keep your girl calm.”

Gustav pats my neck. “I think I can handle that part.”

The feel of his hand on my neck isn’t very reassuring, however. It reminds me about how he kissed me not long ago, and I thought it was because he liked me, but really it was to cover for some people walking by. It makes me angry. And confused. I prance around just a little, to get my irritation out.

But then the grey’s shooting back down the narrow passage, and we’re up. Gustav kicks me sharply, and I pin my ears. Unnecessary, I want to tell him. I know what we’re doing, idiot.

He seems to have realized that he isn’t entirely a driver, and he eases up, letting me choose our speed going into the first barrel. He chose to go right first, which is fine, and I nearly stop once I’m even with the barrel, churning up dirt as I pivot and round the barrel, bee-lining for the second one.

Once we clear that one, it feels like it takes longer to reach the third, and then we dead sprint back out toward the alley that apparently riles up the other horses. I thought it was a respectable showing, all in all, but when I glance up at our time—nineteen and a half seconds is not great.

It’s a full three seconds longer than the grey ahead of us got.

Emery and Whitney, however, are not laughing.

“That looked surprisingly great,” Whitney says. “I think I took twenty-two seconds my first time around, and that was at a race.”

“Mine was twenty-five.” Emery moans.

We wait with them for the racing to begin, and luckily, we don’t have to wait very long. But once it starts, and my heart is pounding, I realize that we have a lot of horses to wait through.

At least we know two of them, now.

The others are all in the stands, and I can tell they sat about as close as they possibly could to Amanda Saddler, who’s perched near the officials at the top, in the back of the bleachers.

I crane my neck as Whitney does her run, the hooves of her tall, leggy sorrel nearly impossible to track as they whirl and spin their way through the pattern. She hunches over the pommel at the end and they fly down the path and out, her hand flung straight out in front of her, and her ponytail straight back, just like her gelding’s tail.

“Fifteen point eight six seconds,” the announcer blares. “A new record here, at the Daggett County Fairgrounds, set by Whitney Brooks.”

I forget for a moment that I’m in my horse form, and I scream my approval. Two horses behind us whinny in response.

Gustav frowns.

But Emery does her run about four horses later, and I can’t help it. She’s just so nice, and her horse is just so tiny, I lean forward, my nostrils flaring and my sides heaving as I crane my neck to watch.

“Hey,” Gustav hisses. “You look really strange. None of the other horses are watching.”

I don’t care. It’s not like someone’s going to suspect me of really being a human. I pin my ears and keep right on watching.

“Mares, am I right?” Whitney laughs.

Gustav does, too, but it’s forced.

When Emery breezes through, and they announce her time—sixteen point one three seconds—she looks disappointed. I feel like if they graded her tiny mare on a curve for her leg length, she’d have won.

“She looked amazing,” Gustav says.

I can’t help thinking that we got nineteen seconds on our practice run, and I thought it went pretty well. These little girls are smoking us. But then it’s our turn, and we’re lining up.

“Grandma’s sitting up in the judging stand,” Whitney hisses. “Maybe throw her a smile if you can.”

As if I hadn’t already noticed her.

Hopefully Gustav will listen to their advice. If I smile at someone, it’ll only serve to freak everyone out.

At least he doesn’t kick me as we trot into the alley. I start to canter on our way in, and then as we burst through the opening into the arena, I put on a little more speed. I aim for the space beside the barrel, and I don’t fully stop to pivot and turn this time, still moving just a little as I spin.

As we reach the second barrel, I try to turn a little earlier. My butt kind of clips the side of the barrel, but I turn and look back as I race away—it’s still standing upright. By the time I swing around the third barrel and start racing home, I feel pretty good about my run.

When the announcer blasts our time, “eighteen point two four seconds,” I’m a little depressed. I’m not going to lie. I really thought we’d have improved more than that.

“You cut a whole second off your time!” Emery’s practically bouncing up and down in her saddle. “That was amazing!”

It makes me feel a little better.

“Who are you talking to, exactly?” Amanda Saddler somehow magically beamed herself down from the judging booth to the side of the bleachers we all just walked past.

I spook a little and step backward. The girls both laugh. “Horses,” Whitney says.

“I’m Gustav,” he says. “We tried to talk to you yesterday—my father’s pretty much a constant source of embarrassment, but I swear, we do not need money.”

Amanda narrows her eyes. “What do you want, then?”

“Journals,” he says. “Not to have them—but Dad told my sister Kristiana that our family had some old journals that might’ve talked about horses, actually. We were hoping to take a look at them.”

Amanda frowns. “I did have some—kept them for far too long, probably. But a few years ago, there was a fire. Everything that I’d been storing in my barn burned to the ground.”

My heart sinks.

Whitney’s frowning. “But didn’t Gabe?—”

Amanda shakes her head. “I’m sorry you came all this way for nothing, but I can’t help you.” She pivots on the heel of her cowboy boot and marches away.

I kind of want to stick around and see whether Whitney and Emery win any prizes or money once all is said and done, but seeing as I can’t talk, and with as depressed as Gustav looks, I don’t even bother trying to argue when he points me back out the way we came. He’s clearly keen on shifting me back and getting out of here.

I can’t blame him.

We just wasted a lot of time on something that doesn’t even exist, and Leonid’s coming—probably closer to us with every passing hour—and we’re no closer to having any idea how to save Gustav’s life, much less how to vanquish the threat Leonid poses with his insane trials and massacres of perceived villains.

It hits me then.

I’m not sure why I didn’t realize it before. His insane and undisclosed trials must be him simply looking at people, deciding if they’re evil, and then ordering them to be eliminated. He’s executing all the villains he finds in Russia before he’s even found evidence that they’ve done something concrete wrong.

It’s probably the most Leonid thing I’ve ever heard.

In his mind, he’s making the world a better place, one murder at a time.

Gustav has slid off my back, and I notice a bare stall on the far corner—no tack, no chairs, nothing at all in front of it, and there’s no one standing around within a hundred feet. I duck inside and shift, too eager to share what I just figured out to wait.

“Holy smoking goat meatballs,” a male voice says.

I spit out the bit and yank the bridle off my face.

Gustav swears under his breath, and he doesn’t use the word meatballs at all. When I turn, I realize there was a kid in the stall I ducked into, mucking it. He looks like a high school kid. He’s staring at me like I’m—well, like I’m a horse who just turned into a person.

His jaw’s dangling. His eyes are wide. And then he says, “I can’t believe it was true. All of it was true!”