Page 34 of Beneath My Skin

Cer snapped our fingers and Dax dematerialized across the room. He reappeared an instant later at my feet, without the chains in his hands. Kneeling. Prostrate before his new master.

He bent until his forehead touched the floor, the palms of his hands flat. He was ready to obey. Part of me really enjoyed the image, I admit. And Cer was positively delighted by the idea of having a servant like him.

Sadly for her, I didn’t intend to leave him that way.

“Rise,” I demanded. “You will not pay tribute to me.”

I felt the struggle going on inside. A keen desire to keep him. To use him for what he represented. For what he could do. What are you doing?Cer wanted to know.

I would set him free. It was an imperative. We do this my way or we don’t do this at all, and I will let her kill me, I replied inside my head.

Cer didn’t appreciate the threat. A wave of fury washed over me and I felt the tip of my nose begin to blister. I pushed back. Refused to back down and refused to let her hurt the man I loved.

Dax watched the battle we raged, his eyes holding mine, his mouth a terse and solid line.

“You can do it,” came his near-silent urging. “Fight her, Mariella. Take back your control.”

“I’m just…not sure I want to.” At once, the oblivion she offered sounded good. Too good. An escape from my problems. An escape from the family who had never wanted me, and the dead-end job. From everything that was wrong with my life.

Dax took hold of my hands and gripped them even when hellfire burnt his skin. “You can do it. Wish for it and it’s yours. I can do that for you. My master.”

But I didn’t want to be his master. I wanted to be his friend. His lover. His partner in life. And I knew I couldn’t have any of those things if I let Cer take over completely.

My hands clenched around his until I was sure his bones would snap. Through lashing tongue and a mouth that didn’t want to cooperate, I managed to say the words he wanted to hear. “Dax Parker. I wish for your freedom.”

The force of the wish—or maybe the implications of it—jettisoned me against the wall. Sparks flew in the open air and a great wind pushed through the hallway. When I fought to open my eyes, I saw Dax, suspended in the air with his head thrown back, his arms flung out to his sides. For a flicker of a second, I saw the manacles on his wrists. Bright pieces of metal keeping him bound. Then they shattered and were gone and he returned to earth, straightening his shoulders and standing taller than I’d ever seen.

His smile, when it came, was unrestricted and open. Maybe even a little cocky.

“Mariella Revely. You are a lifesaver.” He strode across the room and reached out to take hold of our arm. Dragging us to our feet. “Let me do the same for you.”

His lips crushed against ours. It wasn’t an explosion. It was a slow, curling warmth, beginning at my toes and rising until it encompassed the whole of me. Pushing Cer out until there was nothing but deafening silence inside.

Instead of giving in to the fear, I leaned closer to Dax. I felt his arms wrap around my waist and pull me until our chests met. The kiss continued and slowly, slowly, the light of his love filled the empty space.

“You’re free,” he whispered against my mouth.

“I’m free.”

The moment I said the words, realized the rightness of it, my world went white. For the second time.

Definitely not a good day.

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