And then there was the tree.
I slammed hard into its trunk. Something in my chest cracked as I slid to the ground. I tried to calm myself, to breathe, to ignore the pain. But it was no use. The entire world was spinning. Pain flashed through me, intense and damaging. I had been hurt. Badly. And it wasn’t over yet. I could see my own blood covering me, yet doing nothing to heal my own wounds. I still had no idea how any of this worked. All I knew was that if I lost this fight, Abram and I were both dead. And who knew how many more after us.
Through bleary eyes, I watched Dalton come toward me. I grappled for the sword, but it was nowhere to be found. It must have dropped it at some point between Dalton’s arms and sliding to the ground.
I tried moving, but a stabbing pain ran up my chest. Yep, I had definitely broken a rib or two.
“I really wanted to do this the easy way, Char,” he said, lumbering over me. “But you just wouldn’t let me, would you? Everything with you has to be a challenge. Always been that way. You know, not everyone wants a girl who plays hard to get.” His teeth shone sharply in the moonlight. His claws twitched by his sides, itching to rip into me. “I was gonna make it quick for you,” he said, licking his lips, “but at this point I’m about ready to hurt you, and I’m not going to feel bad about it.”
I searched his beastly body looking for a weak spot. Certainly there had to be something to exploit. Certainly there was an area that I could attack that, even in his current condition, might still be vulnerable.
I grinned a little as the answer came to me.
“Funny,” I muttered. “I was just about to tell you the same thing.”
And then I kicked him right between the legs.
Pain threatened to rip me right in half, but I still didn’t hurt half as much as Dalton did. The big lug keeled over, affording me just enough room to snake past him.
I stumbled away, holding my injured midsection. He would be back on his feet in a minute. These beasts never stayed hurt for long. I thought about running, but reconsidered. Abram was here. I needed to do my best to keep him safe. Love me or not, he would’ve done the same for me. And that was what mattered.
Through my pain-filled gaze, I caught sight of the sword. It hurt like hell as I bent over to scoop it up, but something about its weight in my hands felt right.
An almost howl was the only warning I got before Dalton collided with me. He knocked me to the ground mere inches from Abram and flipped me over. The sword flew from my hands again, landing just out of reach.
He sat on my chest, all the bravado gone from him.
“I’m gonna make you wish you were never born, you fat bitch,” he snarled.
Thrusting his arm forward, he dug into my chest. Blood splattered everywhere as I felt an intense rush of heat and pain. Suddenly, my broken ribs didn’t seem so bad.
He dug again and again. The pain intensified and morphed into a strong and primal sickness. Bile rose in my throat, and my body began to wretch.
“This is where you die,” he kept repeating. “This is where you die.”
My blood was all over him now, and he shimmered gold in its presence. I turned my head, half to check the distance to the sword and half so that I wouldn’t have to actually watch Dalton murder me.
I stretched my hand out, but the damn thing was too far. It wouldn’t have mattered anyway. I was too weak, and this hurt too much. My vision blurred, the world paled.
Satina’s words rang through my head again.
Outlast it.
But that was ridiculous. Dalton ran a claw deep into me now. I could literally feel his fingers inside of me, claiming my blood as his own. There was no way I could do this. Let him take the blood. Let him take it all. Nothing was worth this pain.
But then I saw Abram lying there. He was still alive, even if just barely. If he made it through this, he would make the next century unlivable for himself, thinking about all the ways he had failed.
No. I would live for him. He was worth it.
And with that realization, the pain sort of went away.
It seemed I had outlasted it.
I stretched my arm as far as it would go, threatening to pull it out of its socket, but pain or not, the sword was still just out of reach. My fingernail grasped helplessly at the dirt, trying to pull myself just a little closer. Dalton’s weight on me made that nearly impossible, but I couldn’t die. I just couldn’t.
I mustered up all the will I could for another pull, and now the sword was just a fingertip away. I didn’t stop until my fingers grazed the hilt, until I could pluck the sword closer.
Dalton didn’t seem to notice. Instead, he kept drilling into me, covering himself in my blood.
“This is where you die,” he said again. “This is where you die.”
My fingers wrapped around the hilt. “Funny,” I said, gathering up the last bit of strength I had, maybe the last bit of strength I might ever have. “I … was … about to-to tell you the same thing.”