The Scorpio Races - Maggie Stiefvater [53]
All Mutt knows is how to beat the hell out of his mount as he’s losing.
I know I should hold Miracle back. I know I should let Mutt and Sweeter finish first.
I feel the buyers’ eyes on me.
I lean forward and whisper to Miracle. Her ear tips back at me, and I release the reins.
It’s not even a contest.
Miracle pulls away from Sweeter by one length, two lengths, three lengths, four, not even breathing that hard. Mutt is bogged down somewhere in the wet ground near the rail, Sweeter slow and inattentive.
I turn around, standing in my stirrups, and salute Mutt Malvern with my crop.
I know it’s a deadly game I’m playing.
“Not a jockey?” Holly says to me as I walk Miracle back into the yard.
“Just a horse lover,” I reply.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
PUCK
Sean Kendrick told me to meet him at the point of the cliffs over Fell Cove, but there’s no sign of him when I get there.
The cliffs here aren’t as high as the ones that border the racing beach, and they’re not as pure white. The shore by the cove is a weird, awkward place to get to, and once Dove and I manage to creep down the narrow, uneven path to the beach, I find that it’s no good for riding on. The beach here is rocky and uneven, and the sea hugs it closely. It’s low tide, but still, there’s only fifteen feet of rocks before the unruly sea smashes itself against them. It’s the sort of place we were always warned against, because a horse could be up out of that ocean and back down with us before one wave had gone out and another taken its place.
I wonder, suddenly, if Sean Kendrick sent me here as a prank.
Before I have time to consider if he seemed like that sort of person and think something truly foul about him, I hear hoofbeats. I can’t tell at once where they’re coming from, and then I realize that they’re coming from above me. I crane my head up to look.
I see a lone horse, stretched out to its fullest, galloping along the edge of the cliff, bits of turf plowed up beneath its hooves. I recognize the horse a moment before I recognize the rider — Sean Kendrick, folded up tightly along the stallion’s back, moving as one with the horse. As the bloody red capall uisce pounds past me overhead, I see that Sean rides bareback, the most dangerous way of all. Skin to skin, pulse to pulse, nothing to protect you should the horse’s magic seize you.
I don’t want to admire them, to admit that the two of them together are something altogether different than I’ve ever seen, but I can’t help it. The red stallion is so fast that it steals my breath and speeds my heart with the thrill of it. I thought the horses I saw on the first day of training were fast, but I’ve never seen a horse move like this before. And Sean Kendrick on him, bareback. He is a pisser, for sure, but the old man I met in the butcher’s is right: There is something about him. He knows his horses, but there is something else about him, too.
I think about the way his face felt in my hand when I pulled it above the water.
I think, too, about what it would be like to ride a horse like that. A bit of guilt stabs just inside my ribs as I remember Finn and his principles, or rather, my principles, the ones that started to slip when the house was at stake. I wish the idea of this sat more easily with me.
Back we go to the top of the cliff, Dove prancing a bit. Even going uphill, even after being ridden well for days now, she’s still excited about running. I hear Finn’s voice whispering in my ear as she flicks her tail.
By the time I get to the top of the cliff road, I know what I’m going to ask Sean.
SEAN
There’s no sign of Kate Connolly when I arrive at the point of the cliff, though I wait for several long moments — moments I can’t spare. I tie the bay mare down, draw a circle around her and spit in it, and take Corr out for a run. If Kate doesn’t show up, I’ll at least have stretched him out. He’s eager and forward today, glad as me for the gallop.
Galloping up at the top of