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“Okay.”

“I wish,” he says.

“I wish,” I say.

“That you were a human instead of a horse.”

I drop my hand. “Of all the stupid—”

“Just say it.” Aleks grabs my wrist and shoves it back up until my hand’s touching Quicksilver’s back. “But touch him while you do.”

I roll my eyes, but I just repeat the weird phrase. “I wish you were a human instead of a horse.” I’m dropping my hand as I say, “But who would want that? Everyone knows that a horse is way better—”

Only, something weird happens, like a clap of thunder, but not loud. It’s like a clap of thunder might feel. . .and suddenly, Quicksilver is a man. A man with burnished golden hair, eyes the color of the sky, and a body that. . . I choke.

He’s entirely and completely naked, and his body is glorious.

“Finally,” the naked man who used to be a horse named Quicksilver says.

As if he’s been waiting for the chance to talk for more than a week. As if this is totally expected. As if everyone already knew that he was actually a man.

Which is insane.

But, a little voice in my head asks, is it really any crazier than fireballs, lightning bolts, and a horse who understands everything I say? A horse who gets jealous when another man touches me?

If I’m being honest, this may be the thing that makes the most sense of anything that’s happened to me in a while.

Grigoriy steps forward and thrusts a bag toward the naked man. The man takes it gratefully and begins dressing. I probably should avert my eyes. Kristiana would avert her eyes. My sister Mirdza would definitely avert her eyes, but that’s not who I am.

I’m the kind of girl who stares at anything amazing as long as I can.

“Adriana,” Mirdza says. “Come over here while he’s dressing.”

But the man knows who I am. He’s been around me long enough that he’s not even surprised to see that I haven’t moved. “Adriana.”

The way he says my voice—it’s deep. It’s slow.

It’s sensual.

My heart races, my breath catches in my throat, and I nearly drown in the cliché feelings that burn in my chest, but I could stand here all day, waiting for him to say my name one more time.

I thought he was gorgeous the first time I looked at his human face. His facial features look nearly aristocratic, and his eyes and hair would be striking no matter how he sounded, but his voice. Oh, his voice is glorious.

It makes things inside of me vibrate.

No, that’s not the right word. It makes them quiver.

“What’s going on?” Gavriil is back, and he’s looking around frantically. “Where’d you put the horse?”

“What horse?” the man asks.

Gavriil frowns, and then he tilts his head, eyeing the now-dressed man strangely. “Wait, who are you?”

The man’s pulling boots on now, brushing the shavings off the bottom of his socks before sticking each foot into them in turn. This is not someone who has always been a horse and is suddenly a man. He knows how to do all the human things.

Was he somehow stuck as a horse?

I’m lucky he liked me well enough to save me both those times. Really lucky. But it’s making more sense that he understood me. And that he bit me when I said he was nuts.