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

33. Izzy

When I found out that I didn’t get into a single vet school, even my safety school, I didn’t tell anyone.

I didn’t tell my uncle, who’s a vet. He spent summers teaching me horse basics. I didn’t tell my step-dad who’s a horse trainer. He knew just how much I wanted to go and taught me everything I know about horses. I didn’t tell my boyfriend—he’s already a vet, and not any old vet. A rockstar orthopedic surgeon people drive to see from miles around. But the real reason I didn’t tell anyone is that telling them would mean I had to tell my mom.

I can’t do that.

She was always there, at my side, making it possible for me to do whatever it took to achieve my dream. She drove me to my uncle’s office day after day. She married a horse trainer who spent all his time teaching me everything with patience and kindness. Then she bankrolled all four years of my college education, lending assistance whenever I needed it.

She did all that so I could get in to vet school.

But I bombed the GRE. My GPA also slipped quite a bit in the past year, and now, it’s too late. I’m doomed. My whole future’s in question. The most painful part is that becoming a vet is who I’ve always been. If I’m not going to go to vet school, who am I? What’s my purpose?

What’s my value?

If I didn’t have such an amazing boyfriend, I might think I had no value whatsoever.

So now I’m driving home like some kind of criminal, trying to screw up my courage to ask Mom and Steve for a loan, because thanks to an unscrupulous jerk at work, my boyfriend’s in a bind. He needs my help, and I don’t have any other way to come up with the hundred thousand dollars he needs to clear his name.

I already checked with the bank.

Without some kind of collateral, there’s no way they’ll give me a loan, which means I’m totally stuck. My only option right now is to beg Mom for a loan so I can bail Heaston out of jail and help pay for his defense.

How the other docs in his practice could just turn on him like that is unconscionable. My fear is that Mom and Steve haven’t been the most supportive of me dating someone who’s almost ten years older than me. Hearing he needs to borrow money—even though it’s just short term— is going to be. . .uncomfortable.

I considered telling them I needed the money for vet school.

But what if I never get in? Then, even after Heaston pays me back, I’d have to tell them that I’d lied. Nothing could be worse than that.

When I reach the ranch, it’s super wet and muddy. It looks like it rained ten inches in the past twenty-four hours. I’m pulling Steve’s little two-horse trailer behind my truck—I borrowed it to take a horse he’d been breaking to a client who lived near me the last time I went out. Now I’m returning the trailer, finally, not that he’d ever ask me to bring it back, but I know it’s more annoying for him to have to use his slant load for little trips.

I’ve barely pulled up when I hear a bizarre, high-pitched scream coming from the rarely used stallion pasture. I didn’t think he had a stallion right now, so I’m a little surprised. I should go right in and get things over with, but I’ve always been a bit of a procrastinator, and a new horse is a draw of its own.

Before I can rethink it, I’m already jogging out to the far pasture, ready to check out the new guy.

I’m usually a grey girl. Give me dark greys with lots of dapples or bright greys that are nearly white. Sure, they’re a hassle to keep clean, but they’ve always spoken to me—all that light and bright energy.

But when I set eyes on Steve’s new chestnut stallion?

I could almost weep, he’s so beautiful.

Boy, he looks mad, though. He’s prancing back and forth, wearing the earth down in a long, furrowed path, his nostrils flaring, his mane rippling like shining mahogany satin.

“Look at you.” I stupidly reach my hand through the extra tall fence.

He snaps at me.

I laugh. “You’re a feisty one. I like that.”

Oliver, one of Steve’s grooms, happens to be walking by. “You shouldn’t reach through the wire. He’s headed for the kill pen. He’s just here until they can arrange transport.”

My jaw drops. “The—what?”

“Apparently he’s a total maniac.” Oliver arches one eyebrow. “After watching him for an hour, I don’t even fault the owner. He’s nuts.”

As if on cue, the massive stallion rocks back on his hind legs and rears straight up, screaming like the devil himself.

“Still. The kill pen?” I sigh. “What a shame.”

“They say he can’t even be approached, much less ridden,” Oliver says.

He’s not even broke.

Ugh, what a waste.

“At least they could geld him first,” I say. “Maybe he’d calm down.”

If anything, that almost makes him scream louder. He rears back again, and this time when his hooves strike the ground, mud sprays in every direction. He immediately goes back to pacing, almost as if he can understand what we were saying.

“You shouldn’t be killed,” I whisper. “Someone should save you.”

He freezes, and he turns toward me, sniffing the air.

I reach my hand through the fence again, prepared to snatch it back quickly, but he trots over, looking like he’s hanging suspended in air between every hoof strike against the ground. It’s hard to look that regal when every step squelches, spraying wet earth in all directions, but somehow, he manages it.

He looks like a hundred thousand dollar horse.

Which is how the idea takes root.

A stupid idea.

Monumentally stupid.

I mean, stealing a horse is always a horrible idea. Really, really bad, but if they’re going to kill him anyway. . . Then I’m not really stealing him. Right?

“You can’t be that bad, right boy?”

He presses his nose against my hand.

I brace myself to be bitten, but he never bites. His nostrils flare, but he snorts, and then he settles a little, shifting and bumping my arm with his huge face.

“What’s your name?” I ask.

As if he can tell me.

He makes the dragon sound I love so much from horses, the snort that sounds supercharged and repeats in quick succession.

“How about Drago?” I ask. “You remind me of a dragon among horses, and I might be about to do something really crazy.”

He whinnies then, long and loud, but he still doesn’t snap at me.

“Let’s see,” I say. “I wonder if we might get along. Do you think I could break you and turn you into something worth a hundred thousand bucks?”

As if he’s answering me, he shuffles and bumps my arm again.

“It would be better than dying, at least,” I mutter. “I’ll leave this up to fate. If I can manage to halter him and lead him into the trailer without anyone finding out. . .”

I wait until Oliver’s gone.

Mom and Steve are probably eating breakfast. They could be out any time, though, and it takes me almost three minutes to find an unclaimed halter at the back of the tack room. I’m not even sure it’s big enough for his huge stallion head.

When I walk up to his enclosure, my hand’s trembling. Can I really do this, steal a horse that’s slated to be killed? Not tell anyone I’m even doing it?

I mean, Oliver could say I was here, but maybe he won’t think to.

Maybe I’ll get this shining chestnut god back to Heaston’s place and start breaking him before they figure out where he’s even gone. If I can. . .if I could sell him for a decent chunk of money, maybe I won’t need to tell Mom and Steve that I even need money. Maybe I can help Heaston on my own.

That would be better all around.

“This is the test,” I whisper to myself again. “If I can halter him and he loads, then there’s a chance.”

When I open the stallion enclosure, the chestnut stallion’s waiting, head down, polite and patient. He looks totally different than the stallion who was screaming earlier. I slip the halter over his head easily, which is good, because it’s barely big enough for me to clip it at all.

“You might need a draft size halter with that massive head of yours. At least warmblood would be better. Sorry this one’s so small, big boy.”

His soft whuffle sounds almost like a laugh.

I rub his nose, and then he leads right along beside me like a little doll until I reach the trailer. He balks once, but the second time I ask him to walk in, he clops his way right into the center of the trailer. “It’s three hours to get to my place,” I say. “You’ll be there before you know it, I swear. And then tomorrow, once you’re settled in, we’ll get to work.”

This is probably the most insane thing I’ve ever done in my life, but when your whole life has come off the rails, maybe you need something insane to get it back on track.

Or at least, I sure hope so.

***Ihope you really enjoyed reading My Wild Horse King! The next book, My Trojan Horse Majesty is up for preorder already.