Page 28 of My Trojan Horse Majesty

The clothing she left for me isn’t exceptionally fine, but it’s manageable. The jeans appear to be worn here often by males, and the shirt’s a nice, deep blue. It’s not overlarge on my lean frame, which is nice. When I emerge, dressed, I’m almost disappointed. I knew she wasn’t going to blush and stammer anymore.

But I’m not prepared for her not to even notice I’ve emerged.

She’s too busy staring at the computer in front of her. I walk closer, my feet clad only in socks. No shoes were provided, so my steps are also virtually silent. It gives me a chance to study her a little, and not from the perspective of a horse in a pen.

Izzy Brooks is absolutely beautiful.

I’m not sure I’d noticed that before. I blame the fact that I was stuck in an equine form, but until this moment, I didn’t even realize quite how stunning she is. Her hair’s cut into a short blonde bob. Her eyes are a bright, light blue, and they’re focused entirely on a news report. . .aboutme. She may not have been waiting on me, but she was studying me in her own way.

I sigh with a little bit of pleasure.

She jumps, shoving the chair back behind her. It’s loud as it rolls, but she’s off-balance, and she nearly falls. I grab her arm to steady her, and she spins, almost crashing into me.

Then she straightens abruptly. “I’m so sorry.”

She’s nearly as tall as I am then, maybe only three or four inches shorter. It’s a nice change from all the terribly short Russian women I’ve been surrounded by lately, and even worse, the bossy, pint-sized Latvian women who’ve plagued me. “Are you alright?”

She nods and extricates her arm from my grasp.

The news anchor’s yammering on. “—an extraordinary individual for an extraordinary time in Russian history.” She beams at the screen. “Now we’re going to interview some people here in Times Square to see what they think of Leonid Ivanovich’s visit.”

A small woman with a child beside her looks a little startled when she’s asked. “Um, well, he’s really, really good looking,” she says. “And he seems nice enough.” She frowns. “I’m not sure about all the people he’s killed, but at least they all seem to be bad men.”

I snort.

“You killed people.” I feel her eyes on me. “Is that really true?”

“That’s your first question?” My lip twitches.

“Well, obviously I want to know how you were a horse and what on earth you were doing at my parents’ house.”

“I was touring the farmlands of America,” I say, “when I happened on some very bad men.”

“Did you kill them?” She folds her arms.

I shake my head. “I didn’t kill anyone—but they trapped me in my horse form.”

“You keep saying that, like you can turn into a horse whenever you want.”

I shrug. “It’s true, though I rarely exercise that ability.”

“Wait.” She throws her hands up in front of me, her fingers nearly touching my chest. “My brother Gabe used to carry around these old comic books he made, and in them, there were Russian people who could turn into horses.”

“You don’t say.”

She shakes her head. “This issoweird.”

“Weird,” I say. “I agree.”

“So can you do it right now?” she asks. “Turn into a horse, I mean?”

“Something happened to me,” I say. “When you found me, I had already been trapped, penned up like I really was just a stallion.”

“I know. Oliver, one of my dad’s grooms, said you were going to be killed.”

“They were going to try,” I say. “Normally, they’d have had no chance of killing me.”

“Who?” she asks. “Who wants you dead?” She drops her arms.

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