a quiet voice, watching his hand as he moved it up and down her neck slowly while looking at her face.
“She is,” he smiled, not stopping his soft rubbing over her brown coat or his loving stare. “I met her a few months ago, right after I came back from the UK. She was being sold at a horse marketplace for such a cheap price, it was shameful,” he sighed. “Salma is a purebred Arabian horse. Her kind is sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars, especially at her young age–she’s only six,” he paused, then looked at me. “S. I. X.” He grinned, causing me to blush and look down, trying to hide my wide, as I remembered my embarrassing freak-out moment the other day.
The prince chuckled, but then continued after a moment, “They told me she was aggressive and hard–almost impossible–to tame, that’s why her price was so low. From only looking at her picture, I wanted her, because I like a challenge,” he winked.
My stomach flipped.
“I met her for the first time when she was brought here, and…” He looked at her for a moment then turned to look at me again. “It was love at first sight.”
My chest tightened.
“Her eyes…they captured my heart like I could never explain. They were fearful, but loving at the same time.” He locked his eyes with me for a moment. “She looked like she wanted to be close, but her mind stopped her from taking a step without being out for the kill.”
The prince sighed again, touching her with both hands now. She bent her head and rubbed it on his chest, causing him to smile big and move his hand through her hair.
“Salma was born for a farmer’s family, and he used to put so much weight and pressure on her that he almost broke her spine,” he said with bitterness filling his voice. “When she got really sick, the lowlife burnt her to force her into working harder, not even bothering to buy another horse to help get things done with her.”
Oh, no!
The prince pointed to her scars, and when I followed his hand, my heart broke for her.
The poor thing…
“But my baby here was so stubborn, she wouldn’t do what he was trying to force her to do, and when it got really serious and he burnt her badly, she taught him how it would feel to have a broken spine–because now he has one,” he said with pride in his voice.
“I did everything I could to get her to like me, but she wouldn’t even let me near her,” he said. “I tried some more, bringing her the best food and trying to feed her myself. I treated her well, very well, I tried teaching her that I wasn’t him, but nothing…she wouldn’t trust me.
“She barely ate anything for weeks, and I lost any hope that she would ever be mine, no matter how hard I tried.
“I loved her so much, and I wanted the best for her, so…I let her go.”
“You did what?” Even with the shock that was filling me, I still kept my voice quiet. For her.
“It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my whole life,” he said. “But it had to be done.”
“Why?” I asked, not able to understand why he would do that or how he could. He seemed to be really attached to her.
“Don’t you know that saying, Princess?” He looked at me. “If you love someone set them free. If they come back they are yours; if they don’t, they never were.”
I just looked at his gloomy eyes with my sad ones. Sad for him.
“And I loved her so much, I wanted her to be happy–even if it meant that her happiness would be in being away from me.”
I swallowed.
“When she left, it was my turn to hate food; I was really depressed. I knew she’d be okay. She could protect herself, and there is a forest few miles away where she could live if she wanted, but I was selfish enough to wish she would just come back.
“Weeks passed and she hadn’t come back, and I lost hope once more, because I knew that if she came back, it’d only take her five days or so. I was wrong, though: it took her two months because my baby is really stubborn that way,” he grinned. “She only found her way back home tonight.”
His grin was infectious. I grinned back and wondered how it would