Wild Horses

Published by

Dreamspinner Press

5032 Capital Circle SW

Ste 2, PMB# 279

Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886

USA

http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Wild Horses

Copyright © 2013 by Kate Pavelle

Cover Art by Aaron Anderson

[email protected]

Cover content is being used for illustrative purposes only

and any person depicted on the cover is a model.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Dreamspinner Press, 5032 Capital Circle SW, Ste 2, PMB# 279, Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886, USA.

http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/

ISBN: 978-1-62380-600-2

Digital ISBN: 978-1-62380-601-9

Printed in the United States of America

First Edition

July 2013

To my family,

whose loving encouragement

made this book possible.

I would like to thank my LiveJournal writing friends and readers for their encouragement and comments during the writing of this book. I am in debt to my friend Sardonicista Imperfecta, who was kind enough to beta the manuscript and provided medical advice for our human protagonists. Elizabeth Hamblin Platt of Holly Molly Farms guided me on the basics of equine behavior. Their generosity and enthusiasm made this endeavor a true pleasure.

L
ATE
July in Pittsburgh sucked, especially if you were so strapped for cash you couldn’t afford a single item off the McDonald’s Dollar Menu. Then again, the humid heat made the very thought of food revolting. Kai sent a prayer of thanks for the abandoned half sandwich he had been able to scavenge from the outdoor café table in the Strip District during lunch.

That had been many hours ago. He felt the brutal heat break as the westering sun hid behind the tall glass-and-concrete buildings of downtown Pittsburgh. A rivulet of sweat fought its way through his sodden bandana, making his eyes sting with his own salt. Kai wiped his brow with the back of his hand and crouched over his rusty ten-speed bike as he balanced in place, not moving, biding his time. Tourists tended to come out of the old, majestic hotel down the street with wallets in their pockets. They emerged from the brass revolving doors and took their inevitable first look up, then down Grant Avenue. A good third of them got stuck at the intersection of Grant and 7th Street, waiting for the rush-hour traffic to pass while gazing at the stone-carved buildings around them.

Just like the guy in the tuxedo, right on the corner. Kai’s eyes were glued to him, studying him. He emanated the poise and calm that spoke of money, entitled arrogance, and control. Surely he could afford to make a small contribution to the less fortunate. Kai noted the way his silky black hair spilled down his shoulders. His graceful hand rose to push a stray strand out of his eye. This motion uncovered his pocket. Silent as the evening breeze, Kai coasted to him from behind, sitting on his antique bicycle with an acrobatic sense of balance. He reached into the man’s pocket and extracted the contents with his left hand. Pushing the pedals hard, he crossed the intersection during a brief lull in the incessant flow of traffic, weaving his way in the wrong direction and earning a few irritated honks. Only once he turned the corner into a narrow alley did Kai begin to breathe again.

He had never picked a pocket before. He had never thought he would have to. As his adrenaline high began to wear off and his hands threatened to shake with spent nerves, regret set in. He thought back to the pale hand that swept the ebony strand back, skimming the perfect high cheekbone. There was strength in the man’s straight back and shapely shoulders, but vulnerability as well, and Kai felt a pang of regret for not choosing a different mark. Someone less memorable, perhaps. Less… beautiful. He fervently hoped the man he had robbed was a true asshole who had it coming.

A
TTILA
K
ELEMAN
was staying downtown only because he absolutely had to, and because he trusted Tibor to send his boys to the stables to take care of his horses. The Equine Behavior Society Conference was an important professional event, but the fact that he had been honored as the featured speaker paled in comparison with the terror he felt at the prospect of being in the same room with so many people at once. He reinstated his routines and coping mechanisms. Like a horse with blinders on, he made sure the spotlight would be bright enough so that he did not see his audience, and he requested a quiet room where he could do his meditation exercises prior to assuming the stage. It was, in many respects, much like a high-profile dressage competition, except he sorely missed the comforting presence of his horse.

Attila was waiting to cross the street in calm silence that felt like the quiet before the storm. The Omni Hotel, where he was to eat, speak, and shake hands with his colleagues and their aspiring students, was only a couple blocks away. He was willing to teach everything he had been taught and that he had learned over the years—despite the alarming throng of humans—as long as this did not have to occur very often or last too long.

The traffic light was about to turn when he felt a subtle brush against his tuxedo jacket. His hand flew back to its protective position a moment too late. A man wearing only torn Bermuda shorts and old sneakers pedaled hard through the busy intersection. Attila stood in place, almost forgetting to take a step forward when red turned to green and the pedestrian indicator came on. His eyes followed the cyclist down the street, transfixed, until he saw the man turn a corner and disappear. Only a moment later, he realized he’d been robbed.

Ah, the joys of city life.

His money clip held only sixty dollars; that much he could do without. His iPhone, not so much. Attila swallowed an ungainly Hungarian curse. He spent the next two blocks thinking about the vivid streak of a wild, tattooed, redheaded man on a rusted bicycle. He emanated power that was unbridled and wild, and Attila still felt the place where the stranger had brushed against his jacket. Old feelings, pesky and inconvenient, began to stir as he thought about the half-naked savage who had risked his life in rush-hour traffic for a lousy few bucks and a cell phone. Attila did his best to suppress them. Instead of calming his thoughts before giving his speech, his thoughts were firmly bent on the best way in which he could retrieve his irreplaceable phone. He could just call the company and have it traced—except the wild vision invaded his mind again, and the memory of their brazen encounter was still there. Attila took a deep breath, thinking hard. Perhaps there was another way.

S
IXTY
fucking bucks!

And a new iPhone!

Kai could hardly believe his luck. The cash would let him eat for over a week if he was careful. There was a greengrocer on Smallman Street who’d let him buy fruit way below cost. He’d have gone to JoJo’s for one of their famous omelets with hash browns, had they still been in business. The diner’s closure four weeks ago cost Kai not only a source of his favorite “breakfast,” that was big enough to sustain him all day long, but his dishwasher job as well. He contemplated buying a cup of the best cappuccino in Pittsburgh, soon rejecting the small luxury in favor of necessities.

The iPhone, though, he could probably sell for more than a hundred bucks—it was a new model with obscenely huge memory and a much-improved camera. He liked the sleek feel of it in his hand. He didn’t relish the thought of letting it go, but it was better than returning to Nelby. Kai’s brow furrowed at the way their relationship had soured as soon as his job disappeared. Not even in his dreams would he have guessed the man would try and press him into pushing drugs on the street. Nelby had taken his things—important things—in order to control him. Kai would not yield. That night he gave in to his wild hunger for freedom and disappeared. The money Kai made unloading trucks was paid under the table, because Nelby was holding his ID hostage along with everything else. Thinking back to the day when he had gone to pay his portion of the back-due rent in order to reclaim his possessions, he still felt the shock of seeing a burned-out wreck where their cheap apartment used to be. All of his things went up in smoke—his clothes, his guitar, and especially his legal documents.

Without legal documents, he couldn’t get a legitimate job.

Without a legitimate job, he couldn’t make enough to get off the street.

Store owners were willing to slip him a twenty here and there for extra work off the books, but those tips were far from regular income.

Kai had not always depended on jobs such as these. After the recession layoffs six months ago, nobody seemed to have a need for a vo-tech graduate with three years of factory quality control experience and minimal computer skills. Now, with his proper documentation gone, he was about as employable as an illegal immigrant. Only half an hour later, Kai’s sandwich was devoured and his plain water sucked down like it was the elixir of life. He was sprawled on the loading dock behind the closed greengrocer’s shop. The filthy concrete still radiated the heat of the day, but it would cool soon, and Kai would be cold enough to pull out a hoodie from his hiding place.

The iPhone chimed in his pocket.

Curious, he pulled it out, pushed the single depression, and straightened with surprise when he realized the message was for him.

“Are you truly so poorly off that you need to steal necessary items from perfect strangers?”

Kai stared at the words. The question wrapped itself around his mind. The last six months had been bad. Terrible, even. He just couldn’t get a toehold—not anywhere—and the last few weeks had been a litany of failed efforts.

“You may keep the money
—
obviously you need it. However, I need my phone back.”

He hunched over the device as he read the second message, his feet swinging off the loading dock. The stink of rotting produce yielded to a light breeze redolent of the fresh smell of river mud off the Allegheny. Kai lifted his face into it. He never thought his victim would contact him. His mind returned to the memory of a silent, poised figure in a tuxedo, waiting to cross the street.

With great hesitation, he touched the glowing screen. A keyboard popped up. Unaccustomed to the task, Kai began to compose an answer.