Page 48 of My Dark Horse Prince

I blink.

“The second you’re discharged, he can heal you right up.” Kris beams at me.

Is she serious?

“It’s like how Grigoriy healed you, but a little different,” Kris says. “Trust me. The recovery will be a snap as long as the procedure goes well.”

Some woman rushes through the door, notices us, and slows down to a trot. “We need to finish the paperwork and take payment, if you’re wanting to move ahead with Friday.”

“Paperwork?” Aleks asks. “We’re paying cash. Can’t we just bring it—”

“The screws and plates are regulated,” she says. “To place the order for them, we’ll need a patient name.”

It takes us almost forty-five minutes to fill out the paperwork, and by the time we’re done, we’re all starving.

Aleks looks practically insane when he catches Kris’s eyes and lifts his eyebrows up and down. “Lamb chebureki?”

I can almost hear her eyeroll, it’s so pronounced. “Fine. It’s on the way anyway.”

“On the way to what?”

Kris turns all the way around in her chair, gripping the side of the seat to hold herself steady. “Aleksandr said you were okay with going the long way home and stopping by the wind farm?”

Right. My leg’s throbbing, and my head’s starting to hurt, too. It could be hunger, or perhaps the fact that my worst fear’s finally somewhat less likely.

Relief headaches.

They’re a thing, right?

“Sure,” I say. “It’s fine.”

“We can wait until tomorrow,” Grigoriy says, “if you’re too tired.”

“It’s fine,” I say. “Really. All I have to do is be there, right?”

He nods. “Exactly.”

I really hope, for his sake, that Aleks isn’t overestimating what he can do. Once, for a party, my mom asked me to blow up a bag of balloons. The first one was super easy. The second was fine. But by the time I finished blowing up one hundred balloons, I was lightheaded, and my head was pounding.

I nearly passed out.

My mom freaked out, worried that the cheap balloons that were made in China might have poisoned me. In the end, it was just the sustained expulsion of air that left me drained. I think about the idea of someone creating enough wind to move the turbines on a huge windmill. . .and I worry.

Just a bit.

I mean, it’s not like Grigoriy’s my problem.

And even if he’s broke, Kris isn’t. I’ll get my surgery either way. He seems so confident. I hate the idea of his confidence being misplaced, but I’ve met too many guys who could swagger, but couldn’t back it up.

Aleks must have some faith, because he spent who knows how much on all those turbines. As we approach, I realize that I had no idea how much he’d spent.

I expected twenty or maybe thirty wind turbines.

There are at least two hundred of them.

“I thought they had to be spaced out,” I say.

“Normally they do,” Aleks says. “In fact, the install guys were not happy with me. I’m not complying with most of their rules.”

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