The helmet on my head feels heavier than usual. The protective gear mandatory for bull riding, but right now it’s a reminder of exactly how dangerous this is. How many ways this can go wrong. How one bad buck, one mistimed twist, could end with my skull cracked open on the packed dirt.
I lower myself onto Brutus’s back.
The sensation is immediate and overwhelming. There’s no saddle between us, just my jeans against his coarse hide, and I can feel everything. The heat radiating off him, furnace-hot, the constant movement, the shifting of massive muscles, the coiled tension of an animal preparing to explode. It’s not sitting. It’s balancing on an earthquake that hasn’t started yet.
Brutus grunts, low and deep, a sound I feel more than hear. His head swings to the side, one dark eye rolling back to look at me. There’s intelligence in that gaze. Recognition. He knows who I am, remembers me from the visits this week, from the times I stood outside his pen while June worked her calming magic.
I set my rope hand, wrapping the braided leather around my gloved palm, testing the tension. The burn starts immediately in my forearm, a preview of what’s coming. I lock my wrist, adjust my grip, and feel the first real spike of adrenaline hit my system. Those around me are watching, ready if anything goes haywire.
Brutus bumps against the side of the chute, metal rattling, the whole structure shuddering with the impact. I absorb the jolt through my hips and knees, keeping my upper body stable, forcing my breathing to stay steady even as my heart tries to punch its way out of my chest.
“Easy,” I murmur, more to myself than to him.
The handlers around me are tense, ready to move.
“Time,” I call out, my voice steadier than I feel. “Give me a minute.”
The arena grows somehow louder, the anticipation building.
I focus on breathing. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Slow. Controlled. I force my heart rate down, force my muscles to relax, force my body to remember that panic is the enemy. Brutus will exploit every moment of tension, every second of fear. If I want to survive this, I need to be loose. Fluid. Ready to move with him instead of against him.
So I lean forward slightly, bringing my mouth closer to Brutus’s ear.
“All right, big guy,” I say quietly, my voice lost beneath the roar of the crowd. “Here’s the deal. I’m not here to hurt you. I’m not here to prove anything at your expense, but I’m not here to lose either.”
Brutus’s ear flicks. He’s listening. Maybe not understanding, but listening.
“Eight seconds. That’s all I’m asking. You give me eight seconds of your worst, and then you get to run around this arena while ten thousand people scream your name. Sound fair?”
The bull responds in the only language he knows. A deep grunt and shift of his large head. A stomp of one enormous hoof that shudders through my entire body, rattling my teeth, vibrating up my spine.
It feels like acknowledgment, and like a promise to make those eight seconds the longest of my life.
“Kai.” June’s voice cuts through everything. The crowd, the announcer, the thundering of my own pulse. June is there, pressed against the rails behind the chute.
“Hey, beautiful. Come to wish me luck?”
“Something better.” She leans in, not looking at me, but at Brutus. The bull’s eye tracks her movement, and I feel some of the tension in his body shift. Not disappear, but change. Redirect.
“Hey, Brutus,” she says softly, her tone completely different from how she speaks to anyone else. “Remember me? I used to feed you bottles when you were just a baby.”
Brutus huffs, a sound that might be recognition or might be contempt. It’s hard to tell with him.
“I need you to do me a favor,” June continues. “Don’t be too rough with this one, okay? He’s kind of important to me. Bring him back in one piece.”
The bull’s response is another huff, this one longer, almost offended. His body shifts beneath me, coiling tighter, and I feel it as both a warning and a dare. He’s going to give me everything he has. June or no June.
But maybe, just maybe, he’ll let me survive it.
“Thank you,” I tell her, and I mean it for so much more than this moment.
She meets my eyes, and everything she’s feeling is right there on the surface. Fear. Pride. Love. Trust. “I love you so much. Please, come back to me,” she says.
My heart pulses at her words. “I love you, and I’ll always be back for you.”
Seth is at the rails too, his expression hard and focused. He gives me a single nod, the kind of silent communication we’ve developed over years of friendship. Carter stands beside him, looking slightly green around the edges, probably still suffering from last night’s drinking competition. But he manages a grin anyway, flashing me a thumbs-up.
My pack. My family. I turn back to focus on the event.
