Page 20 of Beneath My Skin

I was two steps away when Jacqueline reached out and took me by the throat. Momentum halted.

“Little girl,” she said with a grimace, fingertips biting deep into my skin. “Do you know what you have inside of you?”

I choked. Tried to gurgle out an answer and failed. My hands clawed at her to try and break the hold. It was no use. I wasn’t strong enough.

“You have one of the strongest outside of the nine demon princes. And I should know.” Unexpectedly, Jacqueline threw me backwards. Out through the open air I sailed until I slammed to a stop on the hood of the car.

I coughed out a breath, my face numb. “You killed him.” I struggled to roll over and get the hell away from her. Get as far away as possible before she did the same to me.

“You sacrifice pawns to get to the queen. It’s the way the game is played. And he isn’t dead, you stupid human. If you’d take the time to look, you’d see he is still breathing.”

“You used him! How could you do that? He has no choice. No chance to stand up to you,” I insisted, rubbing at the bruises on my throat.

“He’ll be back. He always comes back.” She hooked a finger through the golden chain around her neck. “As long as I have this, Dax is bound to me.”

I struggled off of my back and onto my feet. Struggled to stay upright when my body swayed like a sapling in a tornado. “Take me,” I murmured. “Take me now and be done with this. Don’t hurt him anymore. Let him go free and I’ll give myself over to you and your—” I stumbled over the word. “—menagerie.”

“I can’t,” Jacqueline spat. “Your soul is entwined with your demon. It was clear enough to see when you let her loose. Unless you release her to me, then I risk killing you both. I’m not willing to take the risk. I’m sorry. She’s too important.”

“Then how do I release her? Tell me,” I cried, turning onto my side against the car. The metal was cold.

She crossed the snow in two strides and took my jacket in her fist. Inhuman strength had me off my feet, dangling in the open air, her face inches away from mine. “Only you know. Until you find a way, I can’t touch you. I will not free the djinn. And I will not stop coming after you.”

“You’re touching me now,” I couldn’t help saying.

Jacqueline let me drop unceremoniously into a heap. “Find a way, Mariella. Your demon is an asset I’m unwilling to lose. Release her to me, more than just saying the words, and I’ll consider letting Dax go free in your place. But be swift. He’s bleeding out as we speak.”

Her statement jolted me back to the present and I rushed toward a pale-faced Dax. Gathered him into my arms and tried to ignore the blood seeping out of the gaping slice in his shoulder.

“You’re not going to kill me?”

“Not today, Alembic. Not today.”

“I’ll find a way to get you what you want,” I promised, looking over my shoulder at the rapidly retreating form of Jacqueline Rohn. Or whatever the hell she was. She wasn’t human, I was sure of it.

She waved a hand. “Do whatever you have to do. I’ll be coming for you tomorrow.”

I struggled to get Dax into the passenger seat of the car. My vision blurred and my breath came in heaves.

“Mariel—”

“Shut up,” I interrupted. “Don’t talk. Save your strength.”

“You have to get us somewhere.” He coughed and a spurt of blood jettisoned out from his wound to land on the dashboard.

“Not the bottle?”

“I can’t.”

Staring at the snow, nausea pushed at me. “You know I can’t drive in this. I need you to wiggle your fingers and wish away the snow for me. Can you do that, Dax? Can you wish away the snow?”

It was still there, beneath everything, like a layer of steel I couldn’t cut through. The same fear and gut-clawing anxiety. The same feeling like I was being strangled from the inside out.

Thick white flakes continued to fall in a steady stream, the accumulation now reaching the hubcaps of the car. I lashed the seatbelt across Dax’s chest and struggled not to let it touch his shoulder.

His fingers reached out to loosely loop around my wrist. “C-can’t,” he stuttered. “You have to drive.”

“You know it’s impossible.” The words were a near-howl. “I don’t drive in the snow. Ever. It’s a rule. My mother died. Do you understand me? She died from crashing in a blizzard and I refuse to do the same.”

“We’re g-going to die unless you do.”

“Fix it! Dax, I know you can fix it.”

His eyes blinked closed, his breathing uneven and his face turning an ashier shade of gray. Crap, we really were running out of time.

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