“I wanted it too much.” His gaze returned to Sasha. “No, I’m not satisfied. If you can do that just hanging on that nag’s mane, you can do a hell of a lot better if you spend time training him.”

“No, I couldn’t. What you saw was all Chaos. I had nothing to do with it. He can’t be broken, and you try to put a jockey on him and he’ll either refuse to run or find a way to kill his rider.” She glanced at Davidow. “As he almost did with that stable boy.”

“But he didn’t kill you today,” Davidow said. “Though I thought for a minute he might.” He was gazing at the dirt on her riding pants, her shirt that was ripped halfway down her back, her hair that was completely out of the ponytail and hanging about her face. “I imagine you must have, too. However, Masenak seems to have solved that problem.”

“Until I try to do something Chaos doesn’t want me to do,” Sasha said dryly. “You saw what he did to me. I was lucky today.”

“I prefer to think that it’s skill instead of luck,” Masenak said. “Anyone could see that you were reaching that devil horse somehow.” He smiled. “And that’s what you’ll continue to do.” His eyes were suddenly glittering recklessly. “I can’t wait to call Reardon and see if I can increase our bet. I believe I’ll introduce you to him on Skype. Particularly since you look very much the worse for wear and the farthest thing from a skilled jockey. Reardon is usually overconfident, and it won’t hurt to feed that fault if I can do it carefully.” He took out his phone and was punching quickly. “Hello, Reardon.” He reached out and yanked Sasha to him to appear on the screen. She was suddenly confronting a compact, fortyish man with wide-set hazel eyes whose salt-and-pepper hair was slightly receding. “You look surprised, Reardon. It’s such a beautiful morning, and my new horse I told you about has had such a great workout that I thought I’d share it with you. I hope your Nightshade is in equally good shape?”

“Fantastic,” Reardon said absently, his gaze on Sasha. “Who’s the girl?”

“My new jockey. My horse, Chaos, is a bit unruly and gave Sasha a bad time. But he’ll still beat your Nightshade. I was wondering if you’d want to double the bet we made last week.” He paused. “Unless you’re afraid you’ll lose your shirt.”