Page 126 of My Wild Horse King

Katerina’s chest is heaving, and a bead of sweat runs down the side of her face. “That was. . .”

“Brilliant?” I ask. “Well done?”

She snorts.

“You know you’re impressed,” I say. “Because it worked.”

“I’m not only impressed.” She steps closer and presses her hand to the side of my face. “I love you, Gustav Liepa. You’re everything I didn’t even know I wanted.”

When Mikhail tries to flame us, I pull as hard as I can on flame, and his power winks out.

Katerina barks a laugh. “That—that was awesome.”

“Now we’re all powerless,” Grigoriy grumbles.

“But,” Aleks says, huffing. “When we kill him, we’ll get our abilities back.”

“True.” Grigoriy stumbles forward, whipping out a long, angry-looking knife that came fromwho knows where. The man always seems to have knives.

Without any warning, Grigoriy plunges it into Leonid’s heart. The knife slides in easily, right up to the hilt, buried in his chest where his heart should be. But instead of jerking, or bleeding, or anything at all, something very, very strange happens.

The daggerdisappears.

And Leonid shifts into a horse—a dark, rich, shiny chestnut with a narrow, perfectly proportioned stripe down his beautifully shaped face. He looks like he could be any racehorse Trifecta might have sponsored. He could be the one to watch for winning the Kentucky Derby, for heaven’s sake.

The knife did nothing.

Grigoriy whips out another. This one’s longer, and it looks even more wicked, with a serrated black blade. “Thinks he can shift to save himself, does he?” He plunges it toward Leonid again, very nearly in the same spot.

But this time, the knife stops, just outside of Leonid’s body, vibrating. Grigoriy cries out and drops it, cradling his hand. He’s swearing up a storm. Russian, English, and Latvian, all of them mixed up in a way that’s almost poetic.

“What does that mean?” Katerina asks. “Why can’t you stab him?”

“Contain him,” I say. “That’s what Baba Yaga said we must do.”

“What does that mean?” Aleksandr asks. “Is she protecting him?”

“I’m not sure,” I say. “But we have a week or so to figure it out.”

32

KATERINA

Not five minutes after Leonid passes out, it starts to rain.

Alexei, Aleks, and Grigoriy race around, desperate to try and get the hole in the side of Abigail’s house closed up. They’re in the process of stapling a tarp up to cover the gaping hole when Gabe shows up on his bike.

“What are you doing here?” I look around to see whether his parents are anywhere close.

“I knew it.” He pumps his fist in the air. “Iknewyou would beat him.” He nods. “I’ll go tell my parents.”

Before I can stop him, he spins around and heads back down the road, pedaling furiously in the pounding rain.

No one seems to care about poor Leonid, who’s now lying entirely unconscious on the ground in a puddle. Not even Boris and Mikhail, who are sullenly sitting on the ground, their hands ziptied behind their backs, have expressed any concern about what’s to be done for their fearless leader.

“What should we do about Leonid?” No one answers.

“Hey.” I grab Gustav’s arm. “Leonid’s lying in water, and if it keeps raining, I’m not sure he’ll even be able to breathe.”

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