Anna backed out of the way as Kage slid the stall door open and brought the two-year-old stallion out to stand in the broad aisle under the lights. She was watching the man, not the horse, though. He’d been wounded, she thought, from what had happened to his wife today. Stoic, but wounded. The anger burned all that away.
And her husband said he wasn’t good with people.
“You tell me that those old-time, round-barreled, cow-hocked Arabs had anything over this horse,” Kage growled as he somehow cued the colt to freeze in place and stretch his neck out and up. The irritation he’d demonstrated dropped away as he looked at the colt, too. Anna thought he couldn’t hold anger and the way he felt about the horse at the same time.
Passionately, Kage said, “This one would take you over the desert sands, sleep in your tent, and stand guard over your body. You look at him and you tell me his back is too long or his legs are weak.”
The horse looked spectacular to Anna, but she was no judge. The young stallion’s copper coat gleamed even in the artificial light. Large, dark eyes looked at them with arrogance, a healthy dose of vanity … and humor, she thought.
His body looked balanced to her and he had a nice slope to his shoulder that was echoed in his hip. His mane was pale and thick and emphasized the arch of his neck, and his tail would have reached the ground if it hadn’t been braided and wound up in a bag.
“What’s with his tail?” asked Anna. “Is there something wrong with it?”
“No,” Kage said with a wary look at Charles.
“Because even in a stall, a horse will rub and wear down his tail to a useful length instead of letting it grow long enough to trail behind him like a bridal veil,” Charles told her, but his real attention wasn’t on his words but on the horse. “Judges like a tail dragging the ground in the show ring.”
He paced around the horse slowly, stopping to pick up a foot. The longer he looked, the more smug Kage was. When her mate finished his examination, what Charles said wasn’t a judgment, but a question. “You’re taking him in the ring at the big show?”
“That’s our intention,” Kage said. “We didn’t show him last year because he was still going through the yearling fuglies. His butt was four inches higher than his withers. This year … he’s got a good chance. He certainly won’t look outclassed in his age group.”
“I don’t know about Arabian horse judging,” said Charles, raising a hand in surrender. “But I do know horses. This one is seriously good—assuming he has a brain between those tippy little ears.” He smiled at Kage. “Tragic if he ends up a lawn ornament or a piece of artwork brought out to make a rich man’s guests ooh and ahh.” He gave Kage a long look. “You’ve successfully defended him and your breeding program. Feel better?”
Kage gave him a sharp look, hesitated, and then said, “You picked an argument with me so I’d feel better?”
“Yes,” Charles said. “I also picked an argument with you so you could quit treating us like customers and talk to us about Chelsea. Your mother is pretty sure you won’t talk to Hosteen about her, and she thinks you need to talk to somebody.”
Anna couldn’t help letting her eyebrows climb up. Charles had gotten a lot of information from no more than two seconds of voiceless communication with Maggie.
Kage frowned at Charles. “She does, does she? I am very grateful to you for saving Chelsea, Mr. Cornick. But I assure you I’m fine.”
“Chelsea isn’t,” said Anna.
“Chelsea,” Kage said. The stallion butted him with his head, and he rubbed the horse’s forehead. He looked around and lowered his voice so that the people working around them wouldn’t hear what he said. “Her mother taught her that her witch blood taints her. And Hosteen never lets up about it. The idea that she’s a werewolf now and has to obey my grandfather, with whom she has been painfully feuding for eight years, hasn’t caught up with her yet. But it will. She is never going to forgive me.”
“If that’s the only problem, you’ll do okay,” Anna said. “If she honestly can’t stand him, then move. There are other packs.”
“And with your reputation you can get a job in any Arab barn in the country,” added Charles.
“Maybe so,” Kage said. “But she’s very big on being independent. I just changed her life without consulting her.”
“There was no way to bring her into it,” Charles pointed out. “I tried that first. If she really didn’t want to Change … It’s a lot easier to give up, Kage, than it is to fight for your life.”
“She’s not going to buy that as an argument,” said Kage, but at the same time, for the first time since he’d picked up his cell phone and heard his wife’s messages, he looked like he’d caught his balance. “You think that she would have made that choice herself? I didn’t force it on her?”
“If anyone forced it on her, it would be I,” corrected Charles. “But no. If I thought she really didn’t have a choice in the matter, I would not have done it even if you begged me to. She chose to die for her children, and she chose to live for all of you.”
“What about my dad, then?” Kage asked. “By that argument you couldn’t Change him unless he secretly wanted it. Which we all know he doesn’t. So why is Hosteen still after you to Change him, anyway?”
“Because he believes that he saw my father force a man through a Change. That man wasn’t unwilling, just unable, which is different. He thinks that I can do the same,” Charles said.
“Can you?”
“Chelsea needed a little help, but I did not force her,” Charles answered. “She saw a chance for survival and she wanted it.”
He wasn’t lying, Anna knew. But there was a sick feeling in her stomach. That was what Justin had said when she’d survived the Change—as if she’d wanted what was done to her and all that followed.
“Use that,” she told Kage, “to comfort yourself, because it is true that she had to fight to live. But don’t tell her that. Tell her you love her and need her. Tell her the kids need her. Tell her you tried to make the choice she might make. Tell her that you thought she’d want us to find the fae who did this to her so he couldn’t kill anyone else. But don’t tell her that her survival means that she really wanted this.” When she said “this” she motioned to herself. Werewolf, she meant, werewolf and all the things that went with it.
Kage’s voice was compassionate. “The voice of experience?”
“Yes.” Anna took in a deep breath. “Truth has many facets. Choose the ones that make her happy to be alive instead of the ones that make her want to smack you.”
“Are you happy?” he asked her.
“Yes,” she said with total conviction. “But it took a while. It might take her a while, too.”
“Yes,” he said, but he didn’t sound nearly as upset about it as he had been when he’d started talking. “I expect it will.”
“It could be worse,” Charles said thoughtfully. “She could be dead.”
Kage nodded. “Yes. This may be difficult. That would have been unbearable. Difficult is better.”
CHAPTER 5
“Market’s back up, is it?” Charles asked dryly, looking at the sales list Kage handed him.
“Sort of up,” said Kage. “The very top-tier horses, the ones that will win at Scottsdale, nationals, or Paris, they sell as high as they ever did. Higher maybe. Last year a stallion sold to Saudi Arabia for five million dollars, but he was a freak of nature. The second-tier horses, good pedigree and nice horses that aren’t quite topflight—those are harder to sell and make a profit on.” He grinned at Charles. “Those are the ones I’m going to be showing you. Before we start, though, you’ll notice Hephzibah on that list.”
“Yes,” Charles said, his eyes crinkling in humor. “Her price has a negative sign by it. Does that mean he’ll pay me to take her?”