Page 134 of Steel Heart Iron Claws

I hesitate for a heartbeat before stalking forward. Gods, if only there were another way.

But this is all I get. One heartbeat. One fantasy. One last kiss.

Then, I start toward her again.

“I said you aren’tdying!” She hurles my bow at me, and in the split-second that I’m distracted by swatting it away, I don’t hear hoofbeats until it’s too late.

She twitches her fingers in the air.

The thirty-point buck tears out of the bushes at too close a distance for me to run. I can barely stuff Rian’s Golath dime back in my pocket before the animal smashes its rack into my chest.

The wind heaves out of me as I’m thrown against the tree trunk.

Fuckinghell.

Grimacing, my vision refocuses—I look down to see at least a half dozen antler points stabbing into me.

I can feel a broken rib. A sharp pain in one of my kidneys. Still, it’s clear this was a warning strike. The antlers only pierce a half-inch deep. The buck could have done a lot more damage if Sabine had wanted it to.

I pant as I grip the base of the buck’s antlers with both hands, then strain to wrench them out of me, screaming from the effort.

“Basten, stop!” Sabine cries.

Her eyes are wide. Incredulous. She underestimates the lengths I’ll go to get her free.

Groaning, I push all my weight against the buck until I can fully free myself from its antlers. Blood immediately pours from more stab wounds than I can count, and for a second, my knees soften before I can straighten again.

Tears pour down Sabine’s cheeks. “Stop!”

“Not…going…to…stop,” I mutter.

Grimacing, she twitches her fingers, and the buck tries to drive forward again. It’s a battle of wills as we wrestle together.

“Then I’m sorry for this. I really am.” She thrusts her hands forward in the air in the same position as the buck’s antlers. “Again!” she screams.

The buck digs his hooves in the dirt and thrusts forward harder, throwing his three hundred pounds of muscle behind the effort.

I try to hold him back. Straining. Grimacing. But I can’t. His antlers stab into me again, right through my ribs, dangerously close to my organs this time.

A cry rips from my throat as pain swallows me.

Digging deep, I grab the beast’s antlers with renewed determination and prepare to fight him for another step toward Sabine.

“Basten, please!” Tears stream down her cheeks. “Don’t make me hurt you again!”

“I’m not—going to stop, little violet.” I wheeze. “You said I promised I’d—I’d tear out my beating heart if you asked it of me. I meant it. I mean it now.”

“But I’m not asking!” she shouts.

“Doesn’t—matter. My heart…is yours. It was always yours.”

Tears stream down her face.

I’m losing a lot of blood. My vision is blurring. Untilnow, I’ve heard the crackling of the encroaching wildfire clearly, but it’s at the point where I struggle to hear my own rasping breath.

I muster my last ounce of strength and lurch forward toward Sabine.

Her sobs sound dim, too far away, as she says one more time, brokenly, “Again.”

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