Page 80 of My Dark Horse Prince

Brigita’s facility is set up with two outlying barns that feed into the main barn. The main barn, in which I’m now standing, is shaped like a large letter T. It has stalls all down the main row, with a wide alleyway, and a huge covered arena that abuts the line of stalls, but branches off away from them at a ninety-degree angle, forming the bottom of the letter.

She’s riding Blanka when I arrive.

My horse. My beautiful, grey mare sails over a four-foot jump right in front of me.

All my practiced calm evaporates.

“Get off my horse, you thief,” I shout.

A dozen heads turn toward me. Six equine, six human.

It looks like she’s showing off on Blanka to the class she’s teaching. Three of those riders were my students. I hate that she’s using my horse to impress my own students, but even more, I hate that they’re all here to watch this.

Brigita hauls on the reins, pulling Blanka up short and making my blood boil. I wonder how she’d feel if I stuck a steel bar in her mouth and ripped it into her face like that. The thought of doing it makes me smile.

“What’s so funny?” She moves toward me on Blanka at a very brisk trot, hauling on her again just in time to keep from crashing into the side wall of the arena. Blanka’s a very literal horse, and she’ll do anything you ask, even if it’s smashing into a wall. A competent rider would already have figured that out and wouldn’t be punishing her horse for her own failings. “Is calling me a thief some kind of joke I don’t get?”

“That’s my horse,” I say. “Get off her immediately.” I open the gate and walk through.

“No, this is my horse,” Brigita says. “If you’d read your contract, you’d already know that. She was abandoned at my facility after you were terminated for cause. It’s all laid out in article six.”

“I wasn’t terminated for cause,” I say. “I was injured here, at your facility, by a horse you manage. Poorly manage. I forgot that part.”

She shrugs. “Have your lawyer contact mine. Until then, I’ll keep riding my horse.” She yanks hard on the right side, forcing Blanka to pivot and head back toward the group gathered in the center of the ring.

“Oh, you’ll be hearing from my—”

One of the loudest whinnies I’ve ever heard sounds from the alleyway at the far end of the barn, near the entrance.

Brigita freezes except for her head, which whips around to see what made the noise.

It’s Charlemagne. Of course it is. Even from here, he looks breathtaking, his sides heaving, his nostrils flaring as he paws the concrete floor.

Brigita forces Blanka to trot back toward me. “What in the world—”

“You will give my friend her horses back.” Kris’s hands are on her hips, and she looks as angry as Charlemagne, who is currently wearing a halter that looks more like a face decoration than a method of control. “Or I’ll see to it that your entire lesson program moves to my barn. I’ll be offering free lessons for three full months, and free board, to anyone who moves to my much nicer facility, just to ensure that happens.”

Brigita’s eyes widen. “You wouldn’t dare.”

“Oh, I think I would.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Brigita says. “Even if you offer free board, my clients have signed agreements with me, just like your friend. They aren’t at liberty to just leave.”

“How do you think it will sound to the horse community that you stole her horses?” Aleks asks.

Brigita slides off Blanka’s back and hands the reins to her assistant, Alvina, who has also dismounted. “Hold her.” She strides toward us then, her eyes flashing. “If you think you can browbeat or threaten me into giving you those horses back, think again. You already know that Danils and the mayor—”

“What do you want?” I ask. “You only do stuff like this when you’re upset about something.”

“I don’t want anything,” she says. But she glances back over her shoulder, and I think about what she was doing. That may be the most telling thing of all.

For the last decade, Brigita has competed when I could not. She has ridden in every competition she could sign up for, but she’s always been just below where she needs to be to win enough Longines points to qualify for the Olympics.

And at the last Olympics, for the first time ever, Latvia actually had a qualifier. Brigita wanted it to be her.

I know, because that was my dream too, long ago.

Blanka was the horse I thought could get me there. She sails over four-foot jumps like they’re nothing. She clears five-foot jumps competently, even in sequence. And her horizontal clearance is unparalleled.

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