Page 33 of Beneath My Skin

I spared a glance at Dax, his face partially obscured by strands of hair blowing into my eyes. Then I remembered our conversation just hours earlier. His desire to be free. I thought about the sadness I’d felt coming in rolling waves off of the trapped sylph. The piece of the valkyrie’s soul entombed in a slender rod.

I strengthened my resolve. “We do this together,” I growled to Cer. “Do you understand? If I let you in, you keep me there. No pushing me back into a corner. I get to make the final decision. Make the final call. Do. You. Understand?”

It took a moment for Cer to answer. The curse, when it came this time, was anticipated. Lacking the normal gleeful agony.

I agree.

It wasn’t a takeover, I thought as blackness filled the edges of my vision. It was a melding. A true meeting of two souls where I tasted darkness. Instead of being frightened by what I saw, I opened my arms. I accepted Cer on her terms. She accepted me on mine.

Raw power flooded from the top of my skull down along my extremities. Every nerve was alight with an electric fire. I breathed in and tasted the air. I recognized every molecule for what it was. Colors sharpened, my senses heightened, and for a moment I knew what it felt like to be one of the fallen.

“You are going to pay for this.” The sound coming out of my mouth, out of my vocal cords, was not mine. I heard a hint of the familiar underneath the thunderous tones of a being bigger than I could ever be.

Jacqueline held her hands up in front of her. Her confident mask was in place and yet beneath the façade, she was frightened. She didn’t want us to see it, but we did. “Cer, be reasonable. I never wanted to hurt you.”

“No, you just wanted to capture me.” We stalked forward. Our fist high, a swell of power stilled the rolling movement of the floor. A second wave, and the light and windstorm of the sylph extinguished. I hoped she was finally free.

The human part of me wondered how Jacqueline knew her name—our name—when I’d never mentioned it to her before.

Knowing filled me at that moment. The demons inside each of us were the same. More than acquaintances, stronger bedfellows than enemies.

“You were always the best of us,” Jacqueline continued, holding up her hands. “Why else would I want you for part of my collection? We could be together again. You’d be free of this human.”

We wanted to chew through our tongue. “You will never collect me. I know you for who you are. Not this meat bag you present to the world, Berith.” The name echoed through the empty space. “I call you out.”

We watched together as Jacqueline’s face shifted and changed. Her eyes were lit with something more than human. Something extra. She lifted her fingers to her chest and they were claws. “I’ve been imprisoned,” she moaned. A guttural utterance. “Trapped for twenty years since we failed. We failed in our mission and this is what he did to us. Look at me! Let’s make something of this world together, my sister.”

If she wanted pity, there was none to give. “I give no quarter to a traitor,” we answered. “You would kill my host. You would kill me.”

“No,” Jacqueline/Berith insisted. “Never.”

“You lied to her and told her our souls are entwined. You wanted to hand her the noose to kill herself. I refuse to let you win.”

“Win? What win? All I want to do is live in peace. I wanted her demon even before I knew it was you, sister.”

“But when you found out, you hatched a plan to silence me. Permanently.” We sent a chilling smile across to the other woman. “You didn’t realize I’ve been one step ahead of you this entire time.”

“Oh? Do tell.”

“We may be trapped together but you forget, dear sister, my human is stronger than you give her credit for. You may have overpowered your host, taken over and extinguished the light of her poor damned soul, but my Mariella? She has something you don’t. Something you never bargained for.”

Our hand reached across and took hold of Jacqueline’s neck. She struggled to free herself when our fingers squeezed, digging grooves into her sensitive skin. Her face turned red as her airway was cut off.

“That’s why she will win,” we finished.

If I expected an impressive display of strength, I was sorely disappointed. Cer needed none of it. She relied on pure intimidation. Her presence was so commanding it sucked the air from the room and turned all attention to her. To us.

Our claws sliced easily through the gold chain at Jacqueline’s neck. “Ol bogira vaoresa elasa. Elasa biab ozien.”

A flash of light exploded from the medallion in my palm. Burning bright to the point where I thought I’d go blind from it. The words imprinted in my mind and I knew what they meant even though it was demonspeak.

I reign over you. You are mine.

The golden threads binding Dax to the medallion, his bottle, slipped away from Jacqueline. They laced around my fingertips and up my arms. A flash of dark tattoos similar to his raced across my skin and was gone within seconds. Though I hadn’t moved, I felt the chain piece itself together around my neck.

“No!” Jacqueline croaked from where she’d fallen to her knees. “What have you done?”

“I take what is mine,” I growled in answer. “The djinn has a new master. He belongs to me.”

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