I traced the pattern over and over as I thought of the incompetent human woman, Warden Morda, the mouse, and how her mistake had led me here, to this bliss in the arms of a man I loved. Dax was honorable and brave, dominant and virile. He was strong enough that, for the first time in my life, I felt safe leaning on a man, depending on him for comfort, for care, for love. I was mated to an alien a bazillion miles away from Earth, and I felt freer than I’d ever been before. Free to be myself, to dance and wonder and dream. Free to fall in love and stop fighting for money, respect, survival. Years of tension and worry were gone thanks to the Atlan warlord sleeping next to me.
“You can remove them now,” Dax murmured.
I stilled at his words. I didn’t want to remove them; they marked me as his
