Page 23 of My Dark Horse Prince

“Wait, how old are you?” I ask. “Are you, like, a vampire?”

Kris laughs, then claps a hand over her mouth. “Sorry. I wondered that, too.”

“Am I a what?” Grigoriy frowns.

“It’s a dead person who walks around drinking blood,” Aleks says. “Apparently some horror novel published just before the famine has everyone believing there may be corpses walking around among humans.”

“I don’t actually believe it,” I mutter. “But is that really any crazier than a horse-shifter magician?”

“We prefer the word mage,” Grigoriy says.

“And for the record, vampires are hot,” Kris says. “Don’t knock them.”

That makes Aleksandr scowl for some reason.

“Inside,” Kris says. “Go. Before your powerless friend who just came back freezes to death.” She starts walking up the hill, and Aleks follows, so I start walking, too. Or at least, I try. I close the door of the car and attempt to put my weight on my bad leg, but not with any success. I make it about half a step and nearly topple over.

Before I can say a word, Grigoriy takes my arm in his, and then he wraps his other arm around my shoulders, bracing me against his enormous, very solid body.

And I realize that Aleks’s jacket does not cover nearly enough.

“Kris!” My voice is ragged—almost panicked.

“What?” She turns around, and swears under her breath. “I’m so sorry. I forgot about your leg again.” She glances at Grigoriy. “In my defense, until a few moments ago, I thought Mirdza could walk. Her leg wasn’t solid enough to risk a fall from riding, but she walked around just fine.”

I shake Grigoriy’s arm off.

“I’ll just carry her.” Aleks is following Kris back down the hill. “That’ll be the fastest way—”

Grigoriy’s head snaps toward his friend. “You will not.”

“Excuse me?” I ask.

“I’m fully clothed and won’t show any parts of anything to anyone,” Aleks says. “They care a great deal about that these days.”

“People didn’t care about nudity a hundred years ago?” Kris asks. “I find that hard to believe.”

“Our people were accustomed to our occasional shifts,” Aleksandr says. “They didn’t react as irrationally as you do.” But the set of his lips tells me that he just likes messing with her.

“I’ll help her.” Grigoriy tightens his grip on my arms. “She can avert her eyes, if the sight of my body bothers her that much.”

“I’ll be fine,” I say. “I may move slowly, but—”

Suddenly, strong arms are shifting, pulling, and with a whoosh, I’m being carried. “Enough.”

Just as he forced me to ride him before, now Grigoriy’s striding quickly up the hill, gaining on Aleks and Kris, and then passing them. “Who’s running this place now?”

“A man named Sergey,” Kris says.

“Servant?” Grigoriy laughs. “Really?”

“It’s a common name now,” Aleks says. “No joke. I’ve met dozens of people with that name.”

Grigoriy’s shaking his head, his long hair shifting across his shoulders to brush against my face.

My hand itches to reach out and touch it, and I’m horrified. What’s wrong with me? I should be reeling still, struggling to process that the horse who saved me, the horse who gave me a ride here, is actually a man.

Then something he said registers. My brain is like that when I’m tired. It works in fits and starts. I look over Grigoriy’s shoulder and direct a question at Aleks. “What powers would usually keep him warm?” I ask. “You said that, usually, he wouldn’t be cold.”

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