Page 129 of Dragon Her Heels

I blinked. “Shot?”

“With a gun,” he clarified as he got both our horses halted. “I saw the blood. I didn’t hear the shot, but one of the archangels instructed me to finish the race and then catch your horse since you wouldn’t be able to stop him. You’ll have company in a moment.” Alex winced. “Sooner than later. We seem to have a rather angry guest.”

I forced myself to straighten, glancing in the direction of the crowd.

Yuless had shifted into his dragon form, and he’d opted to be rather large. He glided down, pumping his wings to land with more grace than usual, likely to keep from startling the horses. Once he touched down, he growled, and steam and smoke emerged from his nose.

Elegance in Moonlight stretched out his nose towards my lover, and he whinnied.

The steam and smoke dissipated before Yuless bumped noses with the thoroughbred. “Are you all right?”

I spent a moment to think about it, and then I shook my head. “I’m pretty sure I’m not.”

The archangel proved to be two archangels, and I greeted Michael and Gabriel with my left hand as my right no longer cooperated. “If we have to rerun that race, please don’t tell me about it right now. If I didn’t win, I also don’t want to hear about it right now.”

Alex snorted. “I don’t know if they’re going to make us rerun it, but I doubt it. You beat me by a furlong. The instant you brought your whip into play, your horse decided it was time to disgrace us all. That was when you were shot, but it didn’t look like your colt noticed or cared.”

“The race will not be rerun,” Michael informed me. “It is trivial for us to confirm the shot would not change the results. None of the horses reacted to the sound. Someone used magic to silence the firearm.” The archangel stepped to Yuless, reached up, and patted the black dragon’s nose. “Please inform my brother we will handle this matter and ask him to please get with the race organizers and confirm the outcome would not be different. If anything, had she not been shot, she would have crushed her competition by two furlongs rather than one.”

While my lover huffed and puffed, he shifted to his tiny self and flew off to do as told.

“One furlong is sufficient crushing, I assure you,” Alex stated in a wry tone.

I laughed at my fellow jockey, and he grinned at me.

Maxwell Firo came up, and he swung off his horse, hurrying over. “Can I help?”

One by one, the remaining jockeys joined us, and after conferring with the archangels, Alex and Maxwell helped me down, careful not to handle my right arm. Gabriel took Elegance’s reins, assuring me my horse would be ready to stand in the winner’s circle as soon as I was.

“I assure you, she has no diseases, so do not mind the blood,” Michael stated, and he instructed my fellow jockeys to secure a strong hold on me, as removing the bullet would result in a demonstration of my temper.

Sure enough, the instant the archangel touched my right shoulder, something snapped in my head, and I fought the jockeys for the opportunity to pluck Michael’s feathers. Had I been in possession of two working arms, I held confidence I would have made off with at least one primary. One zap with holy fire later, I ended up on the dirt spewing curses.

Michael presented the bullet, which was covered in blood. “I have stopped the bleeding, but the bone is cracked, and you should, after dealing with the pertinent details here, go to the hospital to be scanned for your medical records. Once the medical staff handles that, either myself or one of my siblings will come and fuse the bone so it can heal. You will be able to ride in your next race, although your shoulder will be quite painful.”

I spent a few more moments cursing before stopping to catch my breath. “Thank you, Michael.”

“I will leave her in your care for now, Mr. Dryden, Mr. Firo. I am certain she would appreciate your company to the winner’s circle if you are so inclined. The sting of this defeat is a passing pain, I assure you.”

“I wouldn’t have stayed mounted,” Maxwell stated in a solemn tone. “I had no idea anything was wrong until Alex went after you. Your colt outran the outriders.”

That didn’t surprise me; while the quarter horses could outrun the thoroughbreds for a short distance, they weren’t fast enough to overtake one at a gallop unless they started ahead—and I doubted it was possible to see there’d been something wrong from the front.

I’d stayed mostly upright and had maintained my position.

With help from both Alex and Maxwell, I got back to my feet. “What does the rulebook say about race interference? I focused on the rules I needed to follow, determined never to pay any of the consequences.”

“If the jockey, owner, or trainer are responsible, they’re disqualified from the race. If the race is completely disrupted and placements can’t fairly be made, the race is rerun at a future date,” Alex replied. “It’s been decades since the club has authorized a rerun. You were the one disrupted, and you still took the race by a large margin, so the race is yours. I’m with Maxwell; I don’t think I would have stayed on, either.”

“I might have given up trying to control him and grabbed his mane,” I confessed. “I did the bare minimum to keep him away from everyone else.”

“A very good call—safest for you, safest for us,” Maxwell replied, and he gestured to where a herd of the race officiators and other staff came our way along with the track’s medic. “If it isn’t an imposition, can you remove the blood from her silks? They’re going to want pictures, and I’m certain they have enough pictures of her being covered in blood.”

Michael snapped his fingers. “Done. Do insist they give her a block or a knee up for the photos; her shoulder will not hold up to any real use until after she is finished at the hospital. I will leave her in your care while we make certain there are no complications confirming her victory.”

Without another word, the archangels disappeared, leaving us to scramble to grab Elegance in Moonlight’s reins. I took over leading the colt, praising him for a job well done. As I had more pride than I knew what to do with, I made the decision to meet the track staff and club officiators halfway to the winner’s circle, where I’d have to deal with roses, both for myself and my colt.

When we almost made it, I asked, “Are you still going to bucket me?”