Destined

want any of them annoying the horses.”

“Yes, ma’am. Some of ’em think horses are big dogs,” the cowboy said, giving the group of fledglings a steely-eyed stare. “They ain’t.”

“I need a break from constantly watching them. I had no idea so many non-riding fledglings were fascinated by horses.” She shook her head wearily.

“Take your break. I’ll have a word with Darius and Stark. They need to keep better corral on those kids.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” Lenobia muttered and, feeling surprisingly grateful that Travis was the one heading to lecture the two Warriors, she slipped out into the cool quiet of the night.

Her bench was as empty as the busy school building was full. The breeze had kicked up and was unusually warm for late winter. Lenobia was grateful for it, and for the solitude. She sat, rolling her shoulders and inhaling then expelling a long breath.

She wasn’t exactly sorry she’d welcomed the Warrior class to her domain, but the influx of fledglings—non- equestrian fledglings—was taking some getting used to. It seemed every time she turned her head an errant student wandered from the arena into her stables. So far just this day she’d found three of them gaping like young codfish at a broodmare who was perilously close to foaling and therefore restless and touchy and not in the mood for fish. The mare had actually tried to take a bite out of one of the boys who’d said he was just wanting to pet her. “Like she was, indeed, a big dog,” Lenobia grumbled under her breath. But that was better than the foolish third former who’d thought it was a good idea to try to lift one of Bonnie’s hooves on a bet from his friends so they could wager on how heavy it really was. Bonnie had spooked when one of the boys had yelped about it being a real big paw and the mare, completely off balanced and disconcerted, had gone down on her knees.

Thankfully, she’d been on the arena sawdust and not bruising, breaking concrete.

Travis, who had been overseeing a small group of her regular students who were learning about ground driving, had dealt with the two boys swiftly. Lenobia smiled, remembering how he’d grabbed each by the scruff of their collars and thrown them directly into a pile of Bonnie’s manure that was, as he’d said, almost as big and heavy as one of her hooves. Then he’d quieted his mare with a few reassuring touches as he checked her knees, fed her one of the apple wafers he seemed to always have in his pocket, and completely nonplused, had gone back to the group of ground-driving fledglings.

He’s good with the students, she thought. Almost as good as he is with the horses.

Truth be told, it appeared as if Travis Foster was going to be an asset to her stables. Lenobia laughed softly. Neferet was going to be sorely disappointed about that.

Her laughter died quickly, though, replaced by the stomach-rolling tension that had haunted her since she’d met Travis and his horse. It’s because he’s a human, Lenobia acknowledged silently to herself. I’m just not used to having a human male around me.

She’d forgotten things about them. How spontaneous their laughter could be. How they could take pleasure that felt so new in things that were so old to her, like a simple sunrise. How briefly and brightly they lived.

Twenty-seven, ma’am. That’s how many years he’d lived on this earth. He’d known twenty-seven years of sunrises and she’d known more than two hundred and forty of them. He would probably only know thirty or forty more years of sunrises, and then he would die.

Their lives were so brief.

Some briefer than others. Some didn’t even live to see twenty-one summers, let alone enough sunrises to fill a life.

No! Lenobia’s mind skittered away from that memory. The cowboy was not going to awaken those memories. She’d closed the door to them the day she’d been Marked—that terrible, wonderful day. The door wouldn’t, couldn’t open now or ever again.

Neferet knew some of Lenobia’s past. They’d been friends once, she and the High Priestess. They’d talked and Lenobia used to believe they’d shared confidences. It had, of course, been a false friendship. Even before Kalona had emerged from the earth to stand by Neferet’s side, Lenobia had begun to realize there was something very wrong with the High Priestess—something dark and disturbing.

“She’s broken,” Lenobia whispered to the night. “But I won’t let her break me.”

The door would remain closed. Always.

She heard Bonnie’s heavy hoofbeats thunking solidly against the winter grass before she felt the brush of the big mare’s mind. Lenobia cleared her thoughts and projected warmth and welcome. Bonnie nickered a greeting that was so low it almost did sound like it should come from what many of the students were calling her—a dinosaur, which made Lenobia laugh. She was still laughing when Travis led Bonnie up to her bench.

“No, I don’t have any wafers for you.” Lenobia smiled, caressing the mare’s wide, soft muzzle.

“Here ya go, boss lady.” Travis flipped a wafer to Lenobia as he sat on the far end of the wrought-iron-backed bench.

Lenobia caught the treat and held it out to Bonnie, who took it with surprising delicacy for such a big animal. “You know, a normal horse would founder on the amount of these things you feed her.”

“She’s a big girl and she likes her some cookies,” Travis drawled.

As he spoke the word cookies the mare’s ears pricked toward him. He laughed and reached across Lenobia to feed her another wafer. Lenobia shook her head. “Spoiled, spoiled, spoiled,” but the smile was obvious in her voice.

Travis shrugged his broad shoulders. “I like to spoil my girl. Always have. Always will.”

“That’s how I feel about Mujaji.” Lenobia rubbed Bonnie’s broad forehead. “Some mares require special treatment.”

“Oh, so with your mare it’s special treatment. With mine it’s spoiling?”

She met his gaze and saw the smile shining there. “Yes. Of course.”

“Of course,” he said. “And now you’re remindin’ me of my momma.”

Lenobia lifted her brows. “I have to tell you, that sounds very odd, Mr. Foster.”

He laughed aloud then, a full, joyful sound that reminded Lenobia of sunrises.

“It’s a compliment, ma’am. My momma insisted on things bein’ her way or the highway. Always. She was hardheaded, but it balanced because she was also almost always right.”

“Almost always?” she said pointedly.

He laughed again. “There, see, if she was here that’s exactly what she would’ve said.”

“You miss her often, don’t you,” Lenobia said, studying his tanned, well-lined face. He looks older than thirty-two, but in a pleasing way, she thought.

“I do,” he said softly.

“That says quite a lot about her,” Lenobia said. “Quite a lot of good.”

“Rain Foster was quite a lot of good.”

Lenobia smiled and shook her head. “Rain Foster. That is an unusual name.”

“Not if you were a sixties flower child,” Travis said. “Lenobia, that’s an unusual name.”

Without thinking, the response tripped from her tongue. “Not if you were the daughter of an eighteenth century English lass with big dreams.” The words had barely been spoken and Lenobia clamped her lips together, closing her errant mouth.

“Do you get tired of livin’ for so long?”

Lenobia was taken aback. She’d expected him to be surprised and awestruck by hearing that she’d been alive for more than two hundred years. Instead he simply sounded curious. And for some reason his frank curiosity relaxed her so that she answered him with truthfulness and not with evasion. “If I didn’t have my horses I think I would get very tired of living.”

He nodded as if what she’d said made sense to him, but when he spoke all he said was, “Eighteenth century—that’s really somethin’. A lot’s changed since then.”

“Not horses,” she said.

“Happiness and horses,” he said.

His eyes smiled into hers and she was struck again at their color, which seemed to shift and lighten. “Your eyes,” she said. “They change color.”