▍ AN ORIGINAL ╱ western romance
There's a kind of wild you can't outrun.
Lemon Odell knows this better than anyone-the kind that lives under your skin, that shapes the way you move, the way you fight, the way you break. Born into a bloodline stitch...
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Outlaw thundered forward, his massive hooves pounding against the dirt like an earthquake. The air itself seemed to tremble under the weight of his charge, a force of nature set loose, driven by fury, rage, or something more primal than either of us could comprehend. Colt turned, his body moving in a blur of panic and realization, but the bull was faster—too fast, too wild.
Time slowed, a terrible clarity washing over me as I watched. The distance between them collapsed in a heartbeat, the space between Colt and safety shrinking to nothing. He ran—boots skidding in the dirt—but there wasn't enough time, wasn't enough distance to outrun what was coming.
Outlaw slammed into Colt with the force of a storm breaking against the shore, all rage and wild, uncontainable power. The impact sent him flying, his body twisting in the air before crashing hard into the ground, face-first into the dirt. The breath that left me was sharp and painful, like it had been ripped from my chest as I watched Colt lie there, unmoving.
The bull didn't stop. Outlaw, all muscle and fury, kept coming, trampling over Colt's prone body with relentless, brutal force. Hooves pounded into his back, into his ribs—every strike punctuated by a sickening thud that echoed through the arena like a death knell.
"No." The word slipped out, barely a whisper, swallowed by the chaos of the moment. I could feel the cold grip of fear tightening around my heart, every instinct screaming that this was it. That I was watching him die.
"Move," I whispered to myself, the word trembling on my lips. "Move."
And then I did. My legs carried me over the rail before I even realized I was running, my boots hitting the dirt hard. The ground shook beneath me, dust swirling up in clouds, but I didn't care. All I could see was Colt—broken, bleeding, vulnerable. He wasn't wearing his protective vest. There was nothing between him and those hooves, between him and the sheer, unstoppable force of Outlaw.
I won't make it. I won't make it in time.
But I couldn't stop.
The bull's attention shifted for just a second—enough to break his focus, enough to pull him away from Colt. I clapped again, shouting louder, waving my arms like a lunatic. "Over here, you bastard!" I yelled, my voice breaking with the strain. I needed him to come for me, to leave Colt alone, to give me just a second—just one second—to get Colt out of there.
Outlaw's wild eyes locked onto mine, and I knew—knew deep in my bones—he would take the bait. That was never in question. The animal had rage bottled up inside him, and it needed an outlet. I was standing there, a willing target.
For a heartbeat, I thought I could outsmart him. Thought that I could draw him away, turn the rage into something I could control, something that wouldn't end with Colt dead in the dirt.
But rage... rage was never something you could control. Not really.
The second Outlaw charged, hooves pounding against the earth, the ground seemed to tremble, the air thick with dust and fury. My heart raced, pounding in time with his heavy steps as the beast bore down on me, massive and unyielding. Every instinct screamed for me to run, to dodge, to do anything but stand there and take the full force of that anger head-on.
