As desperately as Meg wanted to run to her coyote’s side and soothe his painful whimpering, she knew she couldn’t get closer than seven feet from him. As it was, the room was only ten feet across.
Her wide, dark eyes took in the shredded flesh on his paws, bloody and oozing. She saw his sensitive wet nose, dry and sliced wide open in two places. Blood coated his muzzle. She wanted to scream at Arkdone, she wanted to rip him open with her bare hands and slice him the way her Maze was sliced right now.
Arkdone took a slow, deep breath relishing her venom, though they’d not exchanged but a few words, he knew she was seething and he thrived on her hatred.
“But I’ve brought you your best friend. I could wave my hand and make him well, if you’d but only ask. In return, of course, I would ask the same simple thing I have already asked: Choose me. Renounce all others and choose me. You’ll have all the power and luxuries you might want, and your pet coyote will walk beside you happy and healthy.” Arkdone shrugged his well-built shoulders. “It seems like a simple enough decision, Meg. Don’t you want Maze to be well?”
Meg was too angry to speak at first, so she prayed for the right words and the strength to say them.
“I want my family and me to be left in peace. I want to be at home with my Mom and Theo and my brothers around me. I want my Maze to be curled up on my feet after having had a good game of chase in the backyard. I want to feel like a normal sixteen-year-old-girl.”
Arkdone offered a dramatic sigh. “Oh, you young, sweet girl, you don’t have any idea how impossible those wishes are now, do you?”
He shook his head solemnly, his Italian leather shoe nudging Maze. “The life you knew is as relevant as a diamond studded collar would be to this dying creature right now. You’re going to have to set new priorities. After all, it is part of growing up. Back in my day, you would be old enough to marry.” His eyes twinkled horrifically at the thought that struck him. “You would make a beautiful, powerful bride to the right groom, my dear.”
Meg shuddered at the thought of what Arkdone insinuated.
“Don’t think to answer right now. Take your time to mull over what has been offered to you…and what would happen to you and your family should you choose not to accept.” His face softened. “You are quite extraordinary—so much emotion bubbling just under the surface. You’re effervescent with one of my favorite deadly sins: wrath. Absolutely beautiful.
“I can imagine you dressed for battle, your dark hair falling down around your shoulders, your gift of influence working those who cross you like puppets on your marionette strings. You would be absolutely magnificent, my dear girl.”
Meg was seething, but she forced herself to breathe in through her nose, out through her mouth. The scent of ashes and sulfur invaded her. “Arkdone—it’s an anagram of ‘Dark One’.”
“And oh so clever, too?” His handsome face smiled widely.
“I’ll leave you two to catch up,” he said, waving his hand gallantly at the coyote. “Though I would not advise you get too close.” He shrugged. “Only Bjorn knows which of you are triggers and which are the explosives. I’d hate to have to come scrape you off the cold, dirt floor—your perfectly shaped body stiff with death’s lovely breath lingering on your decaying skin.”
Arkdone’s eyes crawled across her frame now that she was standing, fists clenched against the furthest wall possible from him. Arkdone jumped up to the slim ledge and opened the door there easily.
“Oh, here,” he said and tossed a small handgun back onto the dirt floor. “Just in case he’s dying for a hug, you may need to stop his advances with that. Remember, it’s either kill or be killed Meg. The nanoweapon lodged in your heart and his won’t care if you’re trying not to get close to one another. One bullet is all you get.”
Meg’s eyes saw the gun glint off the dim light from overhead. She wasn’t sure, but it could be closer to the coyote than seven feet. She tried to estimate, but her mind was playing tricks on her. Who could guess exactly how far away seven feet is—especially when lives depended on it?
She didn’t move to get the gun. Instead, she stood thinking about her sweet Maze and how she found him all those years ago. Here, lying on the dirt floor, Maze looked a little like he did when he was a puppy. He was on his side, legs and face twitching occasionally in his sleep. But it was the puddles of blood soaking into the putrid, hard dirt from his ripped feet and nose that tore the image of him as a puppy from her mind. Now all she saw was how badly she let her best friend and family down. Tears of anger and fear slipped down Meg’s dirty cheeks.
Chapter 55 Alik and Farrow
“Can I get you something from inside?” Farrow asked.