Page 18 of My Dark Horse Prince

“Right.” Aleks shakes his head. “Let’s go inside.”

“Wait, is this your house?” I glance behind me again, somewhat in awe. Kris’s penniless trainer owns a mansion?

“Not exactly.” Kris smiles. “This one belongs to someone who’s been away for a long time. Our house is—”

“Wait, did you just say our?” My brain feels fuzzy. I clearly didn’t get much sleep the past two days.

Kris beams, and this time, her wide, open grin isn’t forced. “We have a lot to catch up on.”

“Clearly,” I say.

“Let’s head back, feed her, and then maybe call some doctors.” Kris doesn’t look like she’s asking, the way she’s staring at Aleks expectantly.

“Wait,” I say. “Did you switch to Latvian? When did Aleks learn Latvian?”

“He’s known it for a long time,” Kris says, at the same time Aleks says, “I just learned it.”

They laugh.

Like something really funny is happening.

“So you want to tell her?” Aleks’s eyes light up. “Are you sure?”

Kris’s smile is forced again. “About how we fell in love and kept things private so people wouldn’t pry?” She nods. “And about how you lost this horse, and we’ve been looking for him for a while?” She bobs her head again. “Of course.”

Aleks frowns. “How about you drive back to my place, and I’ll bring the lost horse back in a. . .trailer?”

“Right.” Kris bites her lip. “Well.” She glances at me. “I mean, he found her or something. May as well try this real quick.” She marches toward me, shifting at the last second and practically running into the stallion. Her hand presses firmly against his shoulder, and she says, “I wish you were a man.”

She wishes. . .what? Clearly she and Aleks have some bizarre inside jokes or something.

The stallion’s head whipped around when she walked toward him, and his ears went back. But now that she’s still just standing there, her hand on his shoulder, he bares his teeth, almost like a dog.

“Okay.” Kris snatches her hand back and trots back toward Aleks. “So, that didn’t work.”

“Did you actually think he’d turn into a human?” I can’t help laughing. “You’ve been reading too many books. I saw that Night of the Wolf on your bedside table,” I say.

Okay, that’s a lie. I didn’t just see it. I swiped it and read it. Along with Wolf’s Mate, Wolf Girl, Wolf Born, and Wolf’s Destiny. They were all pretty good. I mean, they weren’t my usual read, but I could see why Kris had gotten into them.

“You know that werewolves—and also horse shifters, by extension—don’t exist, right?”

Kris’s lips twitch.

Clearly she does know, and now she’s mocking me. Awesome. “If Aleks grabs me a halter, I think I can put it on him.”

The look on Aleks’s face is hard to interpret. He looks either amused or horrified, and I don’t know him well enough to be sure which it is. “I think I can handle it.”

Fine. He’s a trainer. He’s healthy and strong. Good luck to him. I start to limp toward the sports car. “I’ll see you back at your apartment or whatever, then.”

I may not have stab wounds, somehow, and I must not have broken my collarbone when I hit that window like I thought, but it didn’t help my leg at all. If anything, it’s gotten worse.

A spear of pain shoots up my leg and into my butt and I nearly fall. Much worse, apparently.

I miss my crutches, and I start looking around for a stick that might work, like an alcoholic in desperate straits might start looking for hairspray, or mouthwash. No luck. This estate is too well kept, other than that sagging fence, apparently.

“Uh,” I stifle a groan as I make my way toward the car.

Before I can take another step, the stallion’s rushed over next to me, bumping my shoulder with his head.

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