Page 72 of The Wolf and the Chimera
When I could’ve reached out and touched the stone, I darted to the left. Though he was fast, the Minotaur was too large to turn so quickly, and he crashed into the perimeter with a boom. As I ran as far as I could from the beast, heading toward the center of the coliseum, I risked a glance behind me.
The minotaur pushed himself off the wall, which he had cracked. Growling, he shook the limestone dust from his head and glowered at me.
Though I had hoped the crash would knock him out for longer, I used every precious second to catch my breath. Sweat coated my brow and trickled down my spine. Heat pulsed under my skin.
Medea,I thought.Medea, I know I angered you by digging around in your memories, but I really could use your help. Both of our survival depends on it.
The ancient sorceress was silent.
“Of course,” I muttered, “when I actually want her to appear, she’s gone.”
The Minotaur lumbered closer and cocked his head. His wide ears flipped.
“Can you understand me?” I asked him in a louder voice. “Could we talk?”
With his head cocked, the Minotaur prowled closer.
“How long have you been trapped here?” I called. “Perhaps we can help each other. If you don’t kill me, I can get you out of here.”
The Minotaur bared his teeth and charged me again.
With no magic and no weapons, I ran.
Either he doesn’t understand English,I thought,or my offer really pissed him off.
Knowing the one advantage of my smaller size was my ability to turn quickly, I zig-zagged across the arena. Behind me, the Minotaur chuffed and skidded across the sand.Though the distance between us grew, my breaths turned into desperate pants, and sweat dripped into my eyes.
I couldn’t run forever.
But if I knock him down a few times,I thought,maybe I can run longer than the Minotaur.
Hoping to pull off the same trick, I raced toward the coliseum’s stone walls then darted to the right, but the Minotaur was not a mindless beast. He dove into my path, and before I could stop myself, I smacked into his furry leg. My face smacked against his hard-packed muscle, and I fell to the ground.
As I scrambled backward across the blazingly hot sand, the Minotaur raised his head and bellowed in triumph. In the sunlight, his teeth gleamed.
I’m going to die,I realized.After everything I’ve survived, I’m going to die in a far-off dimension, completely alone.
The Minotaur beat his fists against his chest and snarled at me. He didn’t go for the kill shot—not yet. He wanted to savor his victory, to stretch out this moment of having little, weak me at his mercy. Stripped of my fearsome protectors, I was nothing against this monster but one of his and Circe’s victims.
That heat under my skin pulsed.
As the Minotaur settled his hard-edged brown eyes on mine and bared his teeth in a gruesome smile, a million memories raced in my mind.
The flash of the vampire’s fang before it digs into my skin.
The gleeful smile of the werewolf as he snatches me from my bed in my parents’ yacht.
Cordelia’s satisfaction as she traps me in the darkest recesses of my mind.
Medea’s certainty as she claims my power as her own.
I had taken it—every moment of humiliation and defeat and pain. I had bared it all because it was all I thought I could do. I had just taken it and waited for someone or something to save me.
I suffered all my life to survive, and for what?
To end up here, dying in yet another cruel immortal’s games?
Enough,something within me cried.We’ve endured enough.
