Chapter 3 - When the Ice Cracks
The storm was tearing through the Golden Vale with the fury of an Atlantic gale.
Inside the east barn, the air was cold, damp, and charged with electricity. Midnight Reel was half-crazed. The auxiliary generator had died twenty minutes prior, leaving the stable block plunged into murky shadow, illuminated only by the rhythmic flash of lightning through the high skylights.
The stallion threw his massive shoulder against the oak stall divider with a sickening *boom* that shook the iron hinges.
"Get back!" Cormac, the stable hand, yelled from the walkway, his face gray with terror as he clutched a lead rope like a weapon. "He’s gone mad, Mr. Kavanagh! He’ll break his own neck!"
"Clear out, Cormac," Declan ordered without breaking stride. His voice was deathly calm, the voice of a man accustomed to seeing ships sink without raising his pulse. "Wait by the office."
Cormac didn't need to be told twice. He fled into the storm.
"He doesn't like the shadows the emergency lights make," Rowan said, stepping past Declan into the narrow passage outside the box. She had to lean against the wall for a fraction of a second to steady herself; the fever was climbing, coating her skin in cold grease. "The fan blades are casting moving crosses on the straw. He thinks he’s cornered."
"Can you halter him?" Declan asked, watching the thrashing animal.
"I don't need a halter. I need you to hold the light steady."
Rowan slid the brass bolt back and slipped through the half-door before Declan could protest.
The box smelled of fresh straw, sweat, and animal panic. Midnight Reel whipped around, his teeth bared, ready to trample whatever entered his territory.
Rowan didn't retreat. She dropped low, lowering her center of gravity, humming that same flat, rhythmic frequency beneath her breath.
*One, two, three, breathe.*
*Four, five, six, breathe.*
She extended her right hand—the uninjured side—keeping her left tucked tightly against her body. The stallion blew a wet snort across her knuckles. His muscles bunched. He was deciding whether to kill her or surrender to the calm.
"Good boy," she whispered. "I know. It feels like the walls are coming down. I know what that feels like."
For three agonizing minutes, she held the pose, ignoring the blood soaking through her sweater, pooling under her armpit, running warm down her ribcage. Midnight Reel’s head lowered. His nostrils fluttered against her palm.
Outside the box, Declan watched with an intensity that felt hotter than the fever in her veins.
Then, a violent crack of thunder struck directly over the barn roof.
A sheet of corrugated iron ripped loose outside with a shriek of tearing metal.
Midnight Reel exploded.
His massive chest struck Rowan’s good shoulder, spinning her violently into the heavy timber wall. The impact jarred the bullet wound so savagely that Rowan heard a wet pop in her own shoulder joint.
She hit the straw-covered dirt, the air driven completely from her lungs. She didn't scream; she couldn't. Her vision went black.
Through the darkness, she felt two hands—large, mercilessly strong, smelling of leather and rain—drag her out of the stall by the collar of her jacket just as the stallion’s iron-shod hoof crashed into the timber where her skull had been a second before.
The stall door slammed shut. The bolt clicked home.
Rowan lay on the concrete walkway of the barn, gasping like a landed fish, unable to pull air past the constriction in her throat.
"Look at me," Declan’s voice commanded. He was on his knees beside her, his hands gripping her arms to pull her upright.
His right hand clamped directly over her left bicep and shoulder to leverage her up.
Under his fingers, the thick knit of her navy sweater collapsed into warm, sticky mush.
Declan froze.
Rowan saw the exact second his expression shifted from cold professional concern to something ancient, violent, and terrifying.
He pulled his hand away.
May you like
His palm was coated in thick, dark, human blood.
***
