Page 12
TWELVE
Stallions who couldn’t learn their manners didn’t stay stallions for long.
A silver, unmarked car tailed my parents out of my junkyard, and rather than dwell on the meeting, I gave Thunder his owed attention, doing my best to comfort the horse. I had no idea how I would quarantine him at the palace, but I would cross that bridge in the next hour or two.
Horses disliked being alone, and I had no idea how long Thunder had been suffering through transport to get into the Royal States, where he had come from, or if I would be dealing with any symptoms of abuse. That my mother had been reduced to petting the animal indicated he’d come from a loving home, as did his impeccable behavior.
Stallions who couldn’t learn their manners didn’t stay stallions for long.
I stared at Daphne with wide eyes. “Am I hallucinating again?”
“You are not hallucinating,” she replied, offering a smile. “I feel like I should be asking the same question, but I pinched myself three times, and nothing changed. I even closed my eyes, shook my head, and tried to find anything unrealistic about the situation. I’m pretty sure what just happened is real.” She peered into the trailer, eyeing the other stalls. “There are a lot of boxes here, and they elevated them so there was no chance of piss ruining them. Their accomplice must know enough about hauling horses to understand they aren’t exactly tidy animals during transit.”
“Want to drive the stolen truck?” I asked, and I grinned at her. “I’ll take shotgun.”
“I’ll even help you find out who stole it, get it cleaned up, and return it. I’ll blame my cousin. I’m sure he’ll love it, especially when I tell him that gem about your parents wanting to marry him off to Rachel. Worse, had he not met Mackenzie, I could see him agreeing to such a proposal. She’s just as well liked as you are. Sorry, Ian, you’re not the twerp’s type.”
“I view that as a good thing.” I gave Thunder another round of petting, dared to give the animal a kiss on his nose, and made certain he was secure before closing the back doors into the trailer. “I wonder if they’ll let me take him to California.”
“The palace grounds has a stable, and I bet if we warn them today, they can set up a quarantine pasture near where they keep the palace horses. He won’t have a lot of space, but you’d be able to visit him daily and take him on walks around the grounds. But isn’t Dr. Stanton here?”
“She is.”
“She can verify if he’s sick with anything. Her talent works on horses, too. She doesn’t do treatment plans, but she can identify all the major illnesses we quarantine for and certify him as healthy.” Daphne patted my shoulder and shoved me in the direction of the passenger side. “Melt something metal at the palace. We can’t leave this poor baby waiting too long. He’s had a rough day.”
“He’s been suffering for more than a day, assuming he has had to deal with those assholes,” I muttered.
“I’m not going to disagree with that. I’m sure your baby boy will be all right. Is this your first rodeo with a stallion? I remember you had a horse, but I can’t remember if he was gelded.”
“Saoirse was a gelding. Had he been a stallion, my parents would have abused breeding him for profit, I’m sure.”
Unbeknownst to my parents, King Patrick of Texas had figured out a way to get around that issue, too. One day, if I wanted a piece of my old horse, I could. All it would take was a little science, a fertile mare of the same breed, and putting in a request for the frozen semen.
Daphne huffed and puffed her irritation over the reality of the situation. “Jutlands are a rare horse breed, so you’ll want to participate in a breeding program, assuming we can source any mares. You’re literally the only Jutland owner in the Royal States right now. It’s a dying breed. City life doesn’t suit them, and the beer companies over in Denmark only need so many animals. Add in that your boy is a black rather than the typical chestnut, and I’m not surprised. Black Jutlands are rare.”
If Daphne said a horse was rare, I believed her. I climbed into the truck, waiting for her to get behind the wheel. “But why would they give me a rare horse, Daphne?”
“I don’t know. I suspect it’s because of their accomplice. Thunder is probably an attempt to open negotiations with another kingdom, and because he’s being gifted to you from your asshole parents, you’re able to initiate contact or not as you see fit.” She frowned. “It’s actually political brilliance. By giving you the horse without any strings attached, you can approach the negotiating table able to maneuver as you see fit. Whomever sent you him, likely from Denmark or somewhere in Europe, is worried about the terrorist group—and feels you’re one of their best bets to resolve it.” She scowled, drummed her fingers against the steering wheel, and shot a glare in Terry’s direction, who stood between us and his SUV, waving his fist. She lifted her hand to her ear and said, “Bite me, asshole! I have kidnapped this prince fair and square, and you can have him back at the palace, assuming we are met by Dr. Stanton to confirm Thunder is healthy. I’ll make up for driving and having two heirs running wild without an agent in the truck through arranging for Thunder to be transported to California. You can’t separate the sad little prince from his horse, Terry. He’ll cry. I am not up for dealing with Ian crying because we hurt his feelings.”
“My feelings are already hurt. After we drop Thunder off, we need to meet my sister at the courthouse,” I muttered.
“And yes, Ian is aware we’ll be dropping Thunder off, where he’ll deal with his intake and review while we go to the courthouse. I’ve decided I’m accompanying him to the courthouse. If that bastard who hurt his woman is there, I will deal with him personally!”
She would, and it would be a bloody mess accompanied by the stench of scorched blood, hair, and flesh. “Let’s try to avoid that if at all possible. I’ve had enough excitement for one day.”
Daphne grinned at me. “It’ll be fine, Terry. It’s not that far, and I can handle the truck. Ian could have handled it, too. He’s one of the more manly princes. Working the junkyard was good for his skills, and you know it. Oh, for fuck’s sake. Fine, hold on.” Rolling her eyes, she lowered her hand from her ear. “Ian, please tell me where some of the metal you need to work on is at. Terry will have some agents load the SUVs so you can do some work at the palace tonight.”
I could understand why Terry would worry, and to prevent the RPS agent from dealing with a meltdown, I told her where to get the items I wanted to scrap and where I kept my molds. “I want to work through roughly eight hundred pounds of material tonight, so they can use my scale where the stuff is at to pick out the right weight of components. Just throw everything into a box and warn them to wear gloves. The edges are quite sharp. I’ll also need my gloves, which are with the molds.”
“You got it,” she replied before relaying everything to Terry. “There. The RPS will take care of moving things to the palace, and Dr. Stanton can monitor your talent usage directly, which will please all those worry warts. With that out of the way, are you all right? I saw you put some serious thought into frying them when you realized they really were there.”
“Had I been that obvious?”
“You went ice cold. They might not have realized how close to death they came, but Terry was worried, especially as they’d gone out of the way to make their approach as peaceful as possible. You’ll need therapy, but you made the right calls. Good job. They’re unfortunately right about the situation: they’re worth far more alive than dead. If there’s a new terrorist group out to worsen the caste situation, we need to stop them.”
“And I’m their ideal target,” I muttered. “It seems odd that they’re not willing to kill non-royal bonds to free up the royals.”
“There are too many lethal empathy bonds among royalty now. They’ll probably want to keep some lower caste breeders around for talents like yours, one step below incompatible with life.” Daphne shot me a look, the kind that made me worry she understood more than I wanted her to. “I can’t tell if you’re just damned humble or you have no idea you’re a single misstep from a rather explosive death—and not like your brother was. You’d make your brother look like a candle compared to your MOAB.”
“Seriously, Daphne? Couldn’t you have used a bonfire?”
“No. Your talent is beyond any mere bonfire. You could light up this entire junkyard and melt it to slag if you wanted, and you’d have the whole place destroyed in a minute or less. My twerp of a cousin asked me to review the footage from North Dakota and try my hand at talent evaluations on your ability. Give it to me straight. Could you do what Rachel did in California?”
“I could do it without a single singe and in a fraction of the time,” I confessed.
“That’s what I thought. You would have if she hadn’t beaten you there.”
I nodded. “I’ll be working with Rachel to develop her finesse. New Yorkers are pure flameweavers, Daphne, didn’t you know that?”
She snorted. “You’re a horse empath, you’re a concentrated empath, you’re an elementalist—and by that, I mean you can manipulate all the elements. You probably have a hefty metalweaving ability founded off earthweaving, and you’re using water and air to help with your metalweaving, just like Terry does.”
“I’m not a horse empath, Daphne.”
I would ignore the rest of her commentary, hoping she would let it go for a change.
“You’re a horse empath. That stallion’s body language completely changed when you went to say hello to him. Trust me, that’s a horse empath thing. It’s possible the horse might be the empath, but that’s unlikely. Jutlands aren’t known for that.”
“What are Jutlands known for? All I can tell is that he is big. Is he a draft?”
“He’s a draft. He’s probably broken to saddle and to carriage, and having a nice carriage for you and your lady to take rides in would be nice—and it would make him an excellent parade horse.”
At the rate Terry was going, New York would be taken over by the parade horses. “But where would I find good Jutland mares? Those bastards did this on purpose. Only they would give me a stallion of a rare breed.”
“Ian, calm down. Yes, he’s intact. That’s fine. He seems like an angel, and angelic stallions are not a problem in a barn. If he’s been trained properly and has a good temperament, you can even keep him in your regular barn with your mares without issue. Some prefer having a stud barn to limit trouble, though. Terry will probably have a stud barn set up because of the Clevelands, so adding Thunder to the mix won’t be an issue. Also, you don’t have to keep his name Thunder unless you want to. His registered name might be an issue if you want to show him, as that isn’t something you can realistically change unless there’s a loophole. Terry made use of loopholes to rename his baby girl.”
I laughed at the mention of Terry’s yearling. “ He’s the horse empath, and he’s stepped into heaven at work when it’s time for him to go work in the stable for the day.”
“Let’s make a bet.”
Daphne would take me for everything I was worth and then some, but I appreciated she wanted to toy with me. “What bet?”
“If Dr. Stanton confirms that you are a horse empath, you will have to breed a Jutland for me. I’ll take the second breeding of the mare you acquire. To ease the sting of your defeat, I will help you find a Jutland mare and import her on my dime. I have terrorist money I don’t want to spend on myself, and my therapists are forcing me to spend it all on myself. If I am buying you a mare so I can have the second foal, I’m being selfish.”
“Daphne, are you all right?”
She slumped in her seat and bowed her head. “I’m really not. They’re scolding me on the headset over being reckless. We can’t leave until they run the plates, identify the owner of truck and trailer, and confirm we can use it to transport Thunder to the palace before returning it. I’m not supposed to be playing RPS agent anymore. I’m interior now, Ian.”
Ah. She was the driver, and that meant the RPS was on edge. “Why don’t I drive? That way, you can play at being an alert RPS agent. Despite appearances, I can handle a truck and trailer.”
Daphne dove out of the driver’s seat with amusing haste. I got out at a more leisurely pace, laughing the entire time I circled the vehicle and swapped with her.
She buckled in, informed the RPS of the change of plans, and grinned the entire time.
I waited for her to confirm I could handle the rig and lower her hand to say, “Did you know that my parents refused to let me have my horse vetted at the palace stable? The day my horse came home, I immediately went to RPS training for handling a truck and trailer, and I was expected to haul my horse to his appointments. He was my animal and my full responsibility. I took care of his vetting, I took him to the farrier, I bought his food, cleaned his stall, hauled his hay, and did everything required for his care. The only time my parents brought in a stablehand to help was if I was sick or there was an actual emergency. When he died, they called in the vet so he could be euthanized on palace grounds. They also hired the contractors required to move his body to the pasture for burial.”
In hindsight, I supposed their treatment of my horse had been one of the sole demonstrations of genuine love I’d ever gotten from them.
They’d taught me what it meant to be fully responsible for another living thing, and they stepped in when I couldn’t handle his care for any reason.
“Even terrible people can do kind and loving things from time to time. What did he pass from?”
“Complications from old age. My parents actually praised me for his care. He outlived the breed standard by five years, and there was nothing anyone could do for him when the time came to let him go. He hadn’t been precisely young when I’d gotten him, and apparently, he had been collected a great deal before he’d been gelded. Pat gave me the entire semen bank for him, and he recommended I wait to use it for line diversification.”
“We’ve done that with a few of our horses. We wanted the genetics, but the stud’s temperament was deemed non-viable. We’d collect, freeze, and breed to mares with better temperaments and the traits we want. We also freeze semen from average studs to diversify the breeding lines. We don’t need nor want every horse to be bred from the same champions. Line diversity is critical. I recommend that you start collecting Thunder’s semen and freeze it to help the Jutlands. That’s what they did to breed Terry’s new colt, and he’ll be critical for line preservation and diversification. Nowadays, if we have a horse with excellent conformation and poor temperament, we’ll collect a bunch of semen before gelding, that way we can try to match with mares with average conformation and excellent temperament, resulting in solid foals. They won’t ever be show foals, but they’re excellent for the breed. We need average horses of all breeds so that the champion lines aren’t inbred.”
If given a chance, Daphne would spend hours teaching me about horse breeding and diversification. “How about we cut a different deal. I want one of your Andalusians for Madelyn. She doesn’t have a horse, and if she ends up stuck with me, she’ll need one. An Andalusian will be perfect, especially if she has empathy, too. If you source me with two Jutland mares from different lines and no crossover with Thunder, I will give you three foals of my choosing from the first six breedings.”
“I’ll one up you on that. I will stage introductions for unbonded Andalusians. Spain insists they owe me a favor, so I will use that favor to acquire you and Madelyn an Andalusian each. In exchange, you will give me three Jutlands from your first ten breedings, as I want three fillies. I will keep a filly, one filly will go to Spain, and one filly will go to Portugal. And if Portugal does as Portugal likes to do, don’t be surprised if another pair of horses shows up. They take favors seriously. Ideally, you’ll get one colt and the rest fillies, and we’ll source another stallion that hasn’t crossed lines with yours from overseas to breed your fillies. You let me worry about the mares and future stud prospects, though. I’ll teach you our methodology for breeding, that way you can have a breeding project to work on. Terry is going to need help with his Clevelands, so it works out.”
I could see her plan working quite well. “This isn’t much of a bet. It’s more of a deal,” I muttered.
Daphne shrugged. “It’s a good deal, though. But you mark my words, Ian. You’re a horse empath. I saw how that sweet boy in the back reacted to you. He needs you as much as you need him. Still, I hope we get authorization to go to the palace sooner than later. There are a lot of papers in the back, and I have a bad feeling about this whole mess. What are these terrorists up to that your parents risked coming here to warn you about them? I’ll admit, I don’t really understand why they brought Thunder with them.”
“I think it’s exactly as they said. They didn’t really want to give me a horse, but their contact knows I used to have a horse and wanted to open a door for discussion. But who wants a chat with me? More importantly, why?”
“You’re the Prince of New York, Ian. You’re one of the most influential men in the world. I can easily understand how someone might think giving you a horse could open a door for discussion.” She frowned, and a moment later, she shook her head. “But it could also be as simple as revenge.”
“Revenge? How is giving me a horse revenge? I like horses, Daphne.”
“Ah, but your parents do not. Your mother was wholeheartedly honest about her disgust in having to care for Thunder. She hates everything about horses, as does your father. Terry was kind enough to spy on them with his empathy talent while you were talking, and both were full of hatred and loathing regarding your new animal. Your mother is a skilled liar, I’ll give her that much. I doubt they had anything to do with Thunder’s acquisition, and that their contact regarding the terrorist cell forced them to do something kind for you before agreeing to cooperate.”
That I could believe. “I suspect we’ll figure more out once we have a chance to go through the papers. As it is, we’re going to be late joining my sister at the courthouse.”
“It’s fine. Your sister has a lot of things to do at the courthouse to keep her amused. Terry made the arrangements for her and Ethan to review some trials and cases to make Royal decisions on them. You’ll be seen as salvation by the time you arrive.” Daphne narrowed her eyes, and then her expression relaxed. “Ah, there we go. We have confirmation regarding the truck and the trailer, who owns it, and that it’s fine if we use it for hauling a horse before returning it. It was stolen a few hours north of here from a farm near a small port. Your parents must have entered the kingdom there. Take your time. The RPS will position ahead and behind, but it’s unlikely anyone is going to pay you any mind. As soon as we arrive, we’ll get into Terry’s SUV to head to the courthouse. We’ve held up your sister long enough, and I’m sure she’ll want to meet your new child.”
“And Madelyn?”
“She’s fine. Please don’t worry. She was told she could make herself comfortable in the juror waiting room, and she’s been reading. The empath on hand has indicated she’s quite content and has relaxed. There is a pair with her.”
“Has there been any sign of her boyfriend?”
“Maybe.”
“Spill it, Daphne. If you don’t, I’ll start cornering RPS agents until I find out.” I started the truck, made certain I had space, and turned it around so I could escape from my junkyard, taking care to keep the ride smooth for Thunder. “Where has he been loitering?”
“He’s been driving by the palace, and we think he’s looking for her old beater. The RPS did a test, switched the plates, and borrowed the vehicle. He tailed it for a while, and then we think he realized the plates weren’t the same. He passed, checked that she wasn’t the driver, and headed home. We recorded the make, model, and plates. As you’ll be departing for California soon, he won’t be an issue—and if he follows you to California, deal with him however you see fit. By the time you land, an official restraining order will be issued and delivered, and it will be valid anywhere in the Royal States.”
The restraining order pleased me; if I saw the bastard, I would be able to disable or eliminate him as I saw fit.
I would even ask Madelyn how she wanted me to handle her ex and abide by her wishes unless he raised a hand against her. Should he, I would reduce him to ash faster than anyone could blink—or stop me.
“I can work with that. All right. Do whatever it is RPS agents need to do while being the passenger. As I have a horse on board, you won’t get to see what I can really do with a truck. Just warn the RPS that I will not be exceeding fifty. I want to keep the ride smooth.”
“Should you buy your own trailer, I’ll get you a fun sticker. It’ll warn anyone behind you that your best friends are on board, and that you’ll kick their ass if they’re hurt. I have those stickers on my trailer, and for some reason, they avoid me. Of course, my plate says ‘VAMPIRE,’ and it’s flagged as belonging to a Montana Royal, which might have something to do with it.”
I laughed, eased the truck to the street, turned my signal on, and waited for traffic to clear up before easing onto the street and heading in the direction of the palace. “I’d be pretty cautious under those circumstances, too. Oh, well. I’ll just settle for the stickers should I get a trailer. Can you really transport Thunder to California?”
“Assuming Dr. Stanton clears his health, I’ll fly the cargo plane myself. That’s the least I can do.”
“I appreciate that.”
“Let me give you a piece of advice, Ian.”
I raised a brow, taking care to keep my eyes on the road and on the RPS agents tailing me. Fortunately for my sanity, they understood to give me plenty of space in case I needed to brake. “What advice?”
“Take up space. If anyone deserves it, it’s you.”