Page 120 of My Queendom for a Horse

“Maybe you put some kind of ward on me and you didn’t even know it,” I say. “Or maybe it’s like that wizard movie where the parents kept the kid safe. Maybe it’s the power of love.”

Aleks chuckles again. “I mean, that would be nice, but in my experience, love is nothing but a liability.”

I wince at that, and he wraps a muscular arm around me and drags me up next to him. I realize for the first time that somehow, he’s not naked. “You have clothes on.”

He grins. “My powers are back.”

“You’re saying that all this time, you could have—”

“Only if you were touching me, and you never wanted to get close to me when I was naked.”

“You’re saying it’s my fault I kept seeing. . .all the things?”

His grin is now a full-blown, self-satisfied smirk. “All the things? And how do you like those things, now?”

I roll my eyes.

“Let’s see if we can get all evidence of our involvement in this erased and get out of here, because I doubt any one of the humans who runs this facility is going to be delighted to find that the base of four support beams was somehow incinerated at several thousand degrees, causing them to simultaneously collapse. I’d like to be nowhere near all this when they start investigating.”

“Ditto,” I say.

27

John’s fine, thankfully. He just happened to be knocked out at the perfect time—he had no idea what happened. And if I lied and told him that he tripped on a rock and hit his head?

Well, I stand by that decision.

It’s not going to do any good for me to start telling Dad and John that Aleks is a horse-shifter and a magician who can manipulate the power of the earth. They’re mad enough that he decided to leave early with Obsidian Devil, and they’re furious that I decided to go with him.

Judging by the tone of Dad’s voice on the phone, John has told him that Aleks and I are dating.

“You’re both to head straight home,” he says.

“I will.”

“And you’ll get separate bedrooms at any hotels where you stop.”

“Sure, Dad.” I don’t bother telling him that my horse turned into a human, and now, while they’re painstakingly taking a ferry and driving from Liverpool to Latvia with Five Times Fast, I’m flying home. . .by way of Russia.

“Kristiana Liepa, milu, promise me.”

I inhale slowly and then exhale. “Yes, Papa. I will.”

When I hang up, Aleks says, “Really? Separate rooms?” His eyes roam just a little bit.

I laugh. “You men are all so predictable.”

But there’s nothing predictable about my first time flying first class. “Whoa,” I say. “How much did these tickets cost? Shouldn’t we have gotten economy tickets?”

Aleks rolls his eyes and wiggles his fingers. “Did I mention that my province at home is absolutely full of two things that I can easily find and call to the surface any time I’d like?”

“You might have mentioned it.”

“The world has changed a lot in the past hundred years, zaychonuk, but one thing hasn’t changed much. People still value gems.”

“And now they’re hungry for oil, too.” I ask him something I’ve been wondering. “When the communist government collapsed, they just gave it back to your cousin’s grandson? Why?”

“My cousin was smart. He was illegitimate, so he knew how to hoard wealth, and how to use it effectively. After the revolution, he bided his time in Europe, investing wisely. He taught his son to do the same. The grandson wasn’t quite as skilled, but he still managed to worm his way back to Russia, bribe the right people, and buy our ancestral land for a song once his friends needed a favor he could provide. And I’ve been able to pick up where that grandchild helpfully left off.”

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