Page 25 of The Paranormal Investigation Bureau
No, I absolutely shouldn’t. That would turn me from an undercover agent trying to stop the carnage to a ballerina with an even bigger target on my back.
I didn’t like her, but I needed Bellatrix to dance this role to save her nasty life.
Chapter21
Arden
That horny Unseelie was up to something. It wasn’t just the NDAs in blood and this mysterious ballet, he was making changes and not explaining himself. He was a long-winded blowhard who would usually bore us for hours about inane details, like why he’d chosen purple as the new costume color, but he was being so tightlipped about things now.
Mostly, he had given people roles they deserved instead of doling them out to his usual favorites. Nyx should have had one of the solos, but not only did I not want to share a lead with Julian, but Bevan was also the better dancer. Bellatrix got the lead because of her name draw, but now that I’d seen her dance more, Beyla had the makings of a star.
Bellatrix and Ivory had every reason to fear her, even if Bellatrix needed to realized she should have retired last season. I got why Marsden assigned Beyla the understudy role, but if he wanted to shake things up, heshouldhave given her the lead. She had both the talent and chemistry with two of the male leads.
Fuck,Ihad chemistry with her, and we hadn’t even danced together yet. I went to the sex dungeon to get my mind off of her, and I’d never been that bored while playing before. A sexy little siren asked me to scene with her, and she didn’t have a lot of hard limits. All I could think about was Beyla, and that couldn’t be right. I barely knew her, and Idid notfuck dancers.
This better not be what I thought it was.
Marsden was definitely up to something. After we had started rehearsal, it became clear Bellatrix had an understudy and the soloists had understudies, but somehow none of the four male leads did. What the fuck? We were going to need backup if this show required us to lift Bellatrix a lot. Who the fuck was Beyla supposed to rehearse with if none of us had understudies?
Marsden’s assistant was working with the corps in one of the studios, Madame Lucinda had a pair of the soloists in another, and we were all in the main studio working with Marsden on the opening scene.
We opened the ballet. It wasn’t a ballerina in an idyllic village, and the mysterious man or men show up later. Merlin had to be loving that. Another reason I hated that incubus was that he was pretty damn vocal about hating how this was a woman-dominated industry. He needed to shut his sexist mouth up. This was one of the few industries where women were the focus, and if he didn’t like that, he should have picked football when he was a kid instead of ballet.
When I got my first glimpse of the choreography in this ballet I had to admit… it was pretty fucking amazing. Why did this ballet ever get shelved? If it had been because of a funding issue, just bringing in some investors or patrons with money to watch the opening number should have brought in enough to get it on stage.
I’d played love triangles with Nicolai and Merlin before, but one of them always got the girl in the end…usually Nicolai. I’d never been paired up with them when we were playing an entire harem before. It was kind of great dancing with them, I even forgot how much I hated Nicolai and Merlin for a hot minute.
The opening number wasn’t that long. We’d be rehearsing with the corps soon. Marsden wanted to move on to us with Bellatrix. The lifts were quite complicated, and she was in rare form today. She wasn’t even contributing, and Bevan nearly dropped her when it was his turn.
“You asshole!” she shrieked. “My feet are insured. I’ll sue!”
“Bellatrix, take five!” Marsden said. Bellatrix shot us this triumphant look until Marsden continued. “Beyla, come try this with the men.”
“What? Why her? This ismyrole!”
“Bella! We talked about this. Take a break.”
Bellatrix was high as a kite. She was clearly sniffling and rubbing at her nose, and her eyes were glassy as she stomped over to one of the chairs to grab her water bottle. How was it not totally obvious to Marsden that she’d spent her lunch break snorting cocaine?! He just ignored her and nodded to our accompanist, Jerrod.
The piano music started again. Beyla took a little run at Bevan. He easily lifted her above his head and balanced her there. Bevan bent his knees and tossed her to Merlin. Merlin caught her and spun her onto his shoulder. The entire thing was effortless, like we hadn’t already been struggling through this with Bellatrix for an hour.
Beyla scissored her legs as Merlin flipped her off his shoulder. My turn. Shesoutenuturned into my arms, and it was utterly perfect. This had to be the most effortless deadlift I’d ever done. I was grinning to myself as I tossed her to Nicolai, but my expression soon turned into a grimace, followed by a growl as he caught her and held her tightly to his chest.
The music stopped. That was all we had learned so far. We hadn’t gotten past the lift with Bevan, because Bellatrix wasn’t cooperating. We got through the entire sequence with Beyla, and it was easy. I didn’t get the chance to do an entire variation with her, but she was an absolute dream to lift, especially after partnering with Bellatrix and Ivory for so long.
“Excellent!” Marsden said. “We’re going to break for the night. We’ll start again tomorrow. Good job, everyone.”
What the fuck? Nothing to Beyla or Bellatrix? Someone needed to say something to Bellatrix about refusing to work with us on the lifts. It needed to be said that Beyla was the better choice for this ballet.
We didn’t get to say a fucking thing. Bellatrix had been watching the clock while we were dancing, instead of us. She’d already taken her pointe shoes off. She wrapped herself around Marsden, and they disappeared.
We all surrounded Beyla. She needed to know we thought she should have the lead. She was on the floor, untying her pointe shoes.
“Great partner work, new girl!” Merlin said. “It should be you we are dancing with, you know that, right?”
I didn’t need fucking Merlin upstaging me, but he was right.
“He’s right,” I said.
