Page 91 of My Dark Horse Prince

Even with the attendant pain and sore muscles, being on horseback in an arena again is glorious.

If my students could see me right now, they’d probably laugh. It’s been six days already, and Kris still won’t let me go over anything larger than basic cross rails. And even then, she’s only setting them up now, at the very end of nearly an hour of flat riding.

“I could go over these in my sleep,” I complain.

“Yes, you could,” Kris says. “And each week, we’ll add a few inches.”

“We have to be able to clear combinations and jumps up to six feet in less than six weeks,” I say.

“We’ll get there,” Kris says. “I’m not worried about the height.” She scowls.

“What are you worried about?” Even asking that question makes me nervous. Because if Kris is worried about it, I probably should be too.

“You two don’t look connected,” she says. “More than anything else, a horse and rider combo has to have a connection.” She sighs. “It’s why Obsidian and I lost the King George.”

“We’ll figure that part out,” I say. “It’s just that Charlemagne’s new and I’m just getting back into it.”

“Maybe,” Kris says. “But for now, do the flowers, the blue stripe line, and then circle back around and come over the raw wood jump.”

“Fine.” I doubt that doing little four-jump combinations is really going to prepare us, but if I’m fighting with my trainer in the first week, I really am doomed. I ask Charlemagne for a canter with a squeeze on the outside, but he ignores me. I press again, and he looks back at me.

“I’m asking you to canter,” I say. “Remember? The squeeze on the outside means you should lead with your right shoulder.”

He snorts.

I have to circle, which makes Kris scowl, but after another bump, he picks it up. Annoyingly, the second he picks it up, Kris shouts.

“Stop.”

“What now?”

“I want you to trot into the first jump,” she says.

“You only do that to keep the horse calm,” I say. “It’s not like he’s going to race away with me.”

“It’s not the only reason,” she says. “Just do it.”

Which is why I’m trotting up to a tiny x like a total novice at her first lesson when Brigita approaches, leading my oldest lesson horse, Buckwheat, with a smug smile on her face. She’s wearing one of her stupid little baby-doll dresses. She’s always thought that dressing up like a teenager makes her look younger. It’s especially idiotic, given that she’s leading a twelve hundred pound horse. “Looks like I’m about to own this horse, too.”

Charlemagne pulls up short, pivots, and snaps at her, almost catching her shoulder.

She jumps, her eyes wide.

It’s satisfying, but I can’t have him doing that. Not really. She might change her mind, and then I won’t even have a shot at winning Blanka back.

Even now, he’s glaring at her.

I kick his side, hard. Stallions should not be glaring at people. It was one of the strangest things that horse on Tangled did. That, and have eyes on the front of his head, like a dog.

“We’ll be ready,” I say. “It’s just that Charlemagne’s green broke, so we’re taking it slow.”

“You want to run a green horse in the World Cup?” Brigita’s smirk irritates me. “Hoping to break your other leg, too?” She eyes my brace intently. Too intently. I don’t like her paying attention to anything to do with me this closely. “I just came by to bring you a token of my genuine concern.” She holds out Buckwheat’s lead rope and drops it.

Kris jogs out of the arena and takes it—luckily he ground-ties quite well. “You brought back her twenty-four-year-old lesson horse? Why? Is he lame?”

Brigita rolls her eyes. “All her horses are lame, just like her.”

“Oh, great, then we’ll just pick them all up, including Blanka, and this dumb contest can just go away.”

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