Page 2 of My Trojan Horse Majesty (The Russian Witch’s Curse #5)

Chapter 2

Leonid

T he only horse we ever owned when I was a child was a plow horse.

A riding horse, well-trained and healthy, cost close to a hundred times as much as the half-starved plow horses my father purchased whenever we stayed somewhere long enough to need one. Our plow horses probably weren’t very well fed, and they certainly weren’t well trained. As a result, if our horses didn’t bite or kick me, I was having a good day.

I wasn’t a big fan of horses.

So later, in spite of having the theoretical ability to shift into a horse, I never did it more than a handful of times. I’ve always thought it was the most vulnerable form to take, and turning into a horse was certainly the least useful of all our magic. Why would we want to shift into a prey animal that we domesticated thousands of years ago?

Only, when something beckons to me from beyond the blackness I’ve been stuck in and I open my eyes, I’m in my horse form. My very muddy, very wet, massively large horse form. It takes me two tries, but I finally manage to roll to my feet—er, hooves—and then I sense what it was that woke me. I sense it, but I can’t figure out what it is. Something very strange is pulling on me, and when I spin around, trotting toward the tugging feeling, I’m able to spot it.

It’s a person.

She climbs out of an older silver truck and begins walking toward the house. I shake my head to hopefully get rid of some of the mud, and I focus on shifting back into my human form. I’m certainly not going to get her attention as a horse in a cage.

Only, nothing happens.

I try again.

Still no luck.

I scream in frustration, but it comes out as a very loud, very angry whinny.

Stupid, idiotic magic. I heard Aleks was stuck in his horse form when we awoke, and I’m assuming Alexei and Grigory were, too, but I wasn’t.

So why am I now?

I inhale, and I dig down deep, and I think about what my body should feel like, and I push toward that as hard as I can.

Still, nothing happens.

I scream again, this time releasing all the fury that’s been bottled up inside since Aleksandr and Grigoriy tricked me with their back-to-back proclamations of surrender.

The woman that’s somehow connected to me starts walking toward me. It must be a witch they’ve summoned to try yet again to destroy me. I created a shield around myself with electricity and water before I confronted them, and I’m guessing it has made me hard to kill. Instead of checking in with any of the others, the witch draws nearer. . .all alone.

And she’s smiling.

She must be totally unhinged. Most witches are, so that makes sense. I imagine she can sense my power—the deep well of my magic—even if I can’t access it right now.

She reaches through the fence, clearly already preparing to attack. “Look at you.”

I snap my teeth at her, pretending I’m not wary of her touch. Acting like a dumb beast often convinces people to lower their guard. They don’t expect intelligence when they see idiocy.

Bizarrely, she laughs. “You’re a feisty one. I like that.”

A man I’ve never seen before is walking past. “You shouldn’t reach through the wire. He’s headed for the kill pen. He’s just here until they can arrange transport.”

Kill pen ? They’re planning to execute me in this form? Did they somehow freeze me in my horse shape? What spell did they use? How can I force my way around it?

The witch looks utterly appalled. “The—what?”

“Apparently he’s a total maniac.” The man tilts his head strangely, as if he’s looking at something very distasteful—only he’s glaring at me. Hardly surprising, if he was brought in by Aleks, Alexei, or Grigoriy. “After watching him just now, I don’t even fault the owner. He’s nuts .”

I’ve literally been awake for two minutes. What’s he talking about? Did he mean, because I was sleeping through a rainstorm? I was magically cursed! I want to zap him to teach him to watch his tongue. I want to. . .I realize that for the first time since the early 1900s, I can’t tell whether his soul’s light or dark. My powers don’t appear to be working at all, because I can’t tell with the witch either.

Without seeing into their souls, without the ability to detect their goodness or their depravity, I feel. . .off-center. No magic. Stuck as a horse. Somehow already linked to this witch. And I can’t even tell whether the people who are evaluating my life are evil or good. I rear back and scream in helpless fury.

“Still. The kill pen ?” The witch sighs pathetically, her shoulders drooping. “What a shame.”

Does she feel sorry for me? Why would she?

“They say he can’t even be approached, much less ridden,” the man says.

I wish one of them would approach me. I may not have much experience as a horse, but I’m pretty sure I could take either of them down with one solid hoof-strike and still break free. It’s this confounded seven-foot-tall electric gate that I can’t figure a way to escape.

“At least they could try gelding him first,” the witch says. “Maybe he’d calm down.”

Geld me? The anger I felt before deepens. Broadens. This time when I rear back, I hold it for a moment, screaming my displeasure. When I finally drop back to all four hooves, the mud around me sprays all over the two idiots in front of me in a very satisfying way. I have so much frustration, so much anger, that I find myself moving again, lest it overcome me. Even with my frenetic activity, and even though she’s whispering, I still hear the words.

“You shouldn’t be killed. Someone should save you.”

I freeze, confused. When I turn back to look at her again, I can’t help wondering whether, somehow, I’ve misunderstood the situation. Why would a witch want to save me? I assumed, based on our connection, that she was some sort of local witch, but what if that’s not true? Horses are generally useless, but their sense of smell’s quite good. I scent the air, checking for the pungent herbs and strange odors that usually accompany dark mages and witches. I smell none of it. I move closer and try again.

Still no trace.

The girl reaches her hand through the fence again, and even though I worry it’s a trap, I move closer still. The ground’s so wet underneath me that it’s practically boggy, but I ignore that and focus on her. I can sense our connection even more than I could before, but I still have no idea what it is.

She smells of horses, hay, and sunshine, and she’s staring at me eagerly. “You can’t be that bad, right boy?”

Could Steve, Gustav, Aleks and the others not have told the man or the woman what I am? I imagine they’d want to keep my identity and presence here as secret as they could. Disposing of a horse carcass would be simpler than a human body too, I imagine. But something they might not have considered in a place this small is the impact of external forces, humans moving beyond their control.

Ironically, the quieter they keep things, the more this principle applies.

If she thinks I’m just a horse, and not just that, a horse bound for death. . .might she be convinced to save me? If she did take me, she’d want to conceal her theft, at least for a while. That just might buy me some time and put me in a position where I can escape and hide safely until my powers return. All I have to do is convince this simpleton that I’ve been misunderstood and that she can save me.

It’s one of the primary failings of all humanity, but especially women, their desperate belief that they’re special enough to change someone or something fundamentally. That’s the reason Katerina pined for Alexei for so long. It’s why romance novels are so popular. It’s not their fault—it’s what they’re taught by society from birth—if you’re special, you can fix whatever broken guy you meet and make him someone who will love you.

In this case, I mean to lean in and make her think it’s true.

Fix me , I think, as I press my nose against her hand.

She flinches a little, like she thinks I’m going to bite her, and then she opens her eyes wide and exhales sharply.

It’s working.

But she won’t believe it if I make it all too easy, so I snort loudly, and I shift and then I lean in more, pressing my nose right into her palm, like I enjoy being near her. It must be a masterful performance, because she smiles like a complete idiot.

“What’s your name?” Her voice is annoyingly breathy.

I snort again, hoping she’ll take it as my stallion-nerves and not recognize it for derision.

“How about Drago?” she asks. “You remind me of a dragon among horses, and I might be about to do something really crazy.”

I call to her then, because it seems like she needs a little nudge to just do it . I whinny, but I don’t snap or do anything aggressive.

“Let’s see.” Her smile grows even broader. “I wonder whether we might get along. Do you think I could break you and turn you into something worth a hundred thousand bucks?”

A hundred grand? Has she lost her mind? I’m an unridable mess. I bump her so she doesn’t realize how much I’m laughing inside.

“It would be better than dying, at least,” she mutters. “I’ll leave this up to fate. If I can manage to halter him and lead him into the trailer without anyone finding out. . .”

She waits until the man’s gone, and then she peers around, checking for anyone else. I have no idea how we’re this lucky, but. . .no one else is awake or out and moving around. She disappears into the barn around the corner, possibly planning something horrible, but I’m just thinking, don’t meet someone who will stop you…

Moments later, she finally emerges holding a ratty blue halter. It looks awfully small, but maybe that’ll help me sell this. I have to act a little nervous, but seem to be calmed specifically by her. I need to exhibit just enough misbehavior to be believable, but somehow also be polite enough that she won’t bail and call for help or abort her mission.

When she approaches me, she’s as white as a snowdrift in the mountains. She looks like she might be sick at any moment, but after breathing in and out a few times, she lifts her hand, and she undoes the lock and opens the chains. Freedom calls to me, but there’s also that strange connection I feel to her. I need to figure out what that is before I bolt. Plus, without my powers, escaping’s kind of idiotic. Gustav could catch me quickly and trap me again—or kill me. Which is exactly what they’ll work out a way to do if I hang around here. I’m not sure my personal shield can absorb and redirect many more of their violent attempts without giving out entirely.

“This is the test.” She’s whispering to herself like a crazy person again. “If I can halter him and he loads for me, there’s a chance.”

The one place I can’t scare her off is right here, by the exit. She could change her mind in an instant, slam the gate shut in my face, and my window to an escape will be gone. I consider trotting over to her and sliding my head into the stupid halter straps. That would almost surely freak her out, so instead, I wait. And wait. And wait. She’s moving so slowly toward me that I want to scream again. Her hand’s trembling, and her mouth’s dangling open. When she finally reaches for me, I drop my head just an inch or two, but I make her do all the rest of the work, eyes rolling, nostrils flaring just a bit.

I also shift a bit, just to show her I’m thinking of leaving, but then I don’t.

As she struggles to fasten the buckle on the farthest hole, I can’t help being annoyed. What horse would stand still and quiet while a person fumbles their way around this much? Am I being too submissive?

“You might need a draft size halter with that massive head of yours. Even a warmblood size would fit better than this. Sorry it’s so small, big boy.”

Big Boy? She has no idea.

Then she rubs my nose. I swear, this whole situation’s painfully absurd. I walk beside her, thinking about where she might be taking me, and whether they might have an enclosure from which I could escape. Luckily, as we reach the trailer, I remember that I should be at least a little resistant so she can feel like she’s overcoming my objections.

A perfect horse going to a kill lot makes no sense, after all.

I balk at first, when she tries to lead me into the weird metal box, but the second time she asks me to follow her, clucking and cooing, I do. “It’s three hours to get to my place. We’ll be there before you know it, I swear. And then tomorrow, once you’re settled in, we’ll get to work.”

Three hours? That sounds like a good head start to me.

Thank you, crazy woman, for breaking me out of my jail cell, but tomorrow, we won’t be starting any sort of ‘work.’ Tomorrow, I’ll have my powers back, no matter what it takes for me to get them, and I’ll be gone faster than you could possibly imagine.