Page 11 of My Queendom for a Horse

Obsidian turns toward me, for all the world like he’s really listening. If he could speak, would he have an answer for me?

I stop walking. “I can’t do it.” I sigh.

Obsidian bumps my arm.

I lean against him. “You wouldn’t understand.”

He whuffles.

“It’s boring human stuff. But I really shouldn’t have bought you. See, there’s this guy who I was in love with a long time ago, and, well.” I sigh. “He married someone else, someone his family approved of, but I never really got over it.”

I must be losing my mind. I swear, Obsidian’s both listening, and he looks sad about it.

“The thing is, he’s really, really rich. So wealthy that his family didn’t like me. I’m not British, and I’m not snooty, or posh, or whatever. We own a nice big farm, but it’s in Latvia and by comparison to them, we’re poor. A lot poorer since my dad lost a hand of poker and we had to take out a really lousy loan against the farm.”

I force myself to start walking again.

“My ex showed up today, and he offered to give us a loan with great terms—low interest and a long time to pay. But that means I’ll have to talk to him, and see him, and be grateful to him, and what I need to do is hate him. So you can see the issue, right?”

Obsidian Devil turns his head sideways, and then he snorts. I’m guessing that’s a no.

“Human stuff,” I say, “is complicated. But if we can win a few races, I can pay that loan off and be done with all of it.” I scratch under his mane—almost all horses love that. Apparently the Devil’s no exception. “But look, I hear you’re from Russia. We’re headed back there, sort of. At least, Latvia’s a lot closer to Russia than you are now. So I need you to do me a favor and be easy to load and work with, alright?”

He nods.

It’s not a hallucination, not this time. It’s not something I imagined, either. He actually bobbed his head.

“Can you understand me? Nod if you can.”

He does it again, and I drop the lead rope. I can barely catch my breath.

The horse who was literally able to pull away from five grown men just stands there, calmly, looking at me with faith in his eyes. Is it faith?

It can’t be. I’m going nuts. It’s a strange coincidence, but there’s no way he can understand me. Horses get me, and I get them, but thinking that he communicates like a human? He can understand Latvian?

It’s too much.

Once we reach the trailer, John waves me over. “What’s going on?”

I scrunch my nose. “So, remember that screaming?” I bite my lip. “I did something.”

John’s eyes widen. “Why do you have that monstrous horse?”

I can barely meet his eyes. “I might have bought him.”

John groans. “Forrest thinks he’s possessed. That’s why they named him Devil. Kris, what on earth were you thinking? Did they pay you to take him?”

Dad’s definitely going to kill me. “Not exactly.”

The string of expletives exploding from John’s mouth is fairly impressive, really. I didn’t know he knew so many Latvian swear words, but he even throws out some British ones I haven’t heard in years. Eventually, though, even John quiets down.

It helps that Obsidian’s standing as calm as a baby deer, staring at him with wide, innocent-looking eyes.

“How bad can he be?” I ask. “Look what a sweet guy he is!” I rub his nose again, and he leans into it.

“What’s that thing doing here?” Dad sounds even more shocked than John.

I wince. “I might have fallen in love with him.”

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