Page 46 of The Paranormal Investigation Bureau
“Sorry. You kept peeking… I thought you liked it.”
“And I thoughtyouhad a policy against ballerinas, but you sure do like to show off naked.”
“Hush, Beyla,” Arden said, scooping me up and carrying me to bed. “Don’t ask questions about anything I said about ballerinas. I don’t pretend to know what’s really happening, but I’m not letting anything happen to you, or Bevan.”
Arden lowered me to my bed and spooned my back. I let out a contented sigh. Why had I avoided this for so long? I had let Derrick ruin this for me, but I felt safe here. Arden wasn’t going to break my feet, he’d never hurt me. Fuck. He was willing to sleep on the floor just because he could feel I was scared.
I was in so much trouble.
Arden turned out the light and nuzzled my neck.
“We should invite Bevan,” he sighed.
Arden’s breathing changed before I could even process that. Witches and warlocks would often totally into the whole group thing, but gryphons definitely weren’t. Was Arden into both of us? I had to admit that I liked Bevan too, and wouldn’t mind having him here.
I decided, as I was falling asleep, that I was going to tell them the truth. They needed to know what they were dealing with. I had a warlock, a gryphon, an incubus, a skinwalker, and a banshee roommate.
I had a feeling they were all needed to stop this.
Chapter34
Bevan
Iwas back home trying to convince my fucking roommates to try getting along with Arden instead of trying to alienate him from Beyla. He wasn’t going anywhere. I hadn’t spilled his secret about the whole mate thing, not even Beyla knew that yet, and Merlin was awful about keeping secrets. He wasn’t like Julian, who would tell everyone everything out of spite. Merlin just had this habit of not thinking before he spoke and so ended up blurting things out.
Ireallywanted to be back at Beyla’s apartment. We all talked every time something would spook her, and she’d excuse herself.Somethingwas clearly worrying Beyla, and that worried Nyx, Arden, and me. She wasn’t afraid of Bellatrix, even though we’d told her that she should be. We all knew several promising dancers had mysteriously fallen down the narrow stairs backstage, and Ivory or Julian were always the ones claiming they saw the whole thing, and that it had been an accident.
There were plenty of other ways for Bellatrix to take her out, and Marsden would still look the other way. She was actively doing that to me in rehearsals, and all he ever did was tell her to take a break.
Beyla was hiding something… she kept telling us she really didn’t want to dance Damita, and that meant something. Everyone in the room knew Bellatrix was miscast. We’d danced it with Beyla, and she was perfect. If Marsden weren’t thinking with his cock, he’d admit that too.
Everydancer wanted the lead. You didn’t spend years abusing your body like we did only to be an understudy. Beyla wasn’t even going to be seen on stage in this performance unless Bellatrix got injured, or miraculously allowed her to perform a show. No matter what kind of production it was, if you asked any understudy on the planet throughout history if they wanted the lead, they would say yes without hesitating.
She wasn’t scared of Bellatrix, so why didn’t she want that role? Perhaps she was being the bigger person and not wanting to actively sabotage her, but she didn’t seem like she wanted it if Marsden finally got fed up with his girlfriend’s drama.
Arden was pretty much famous. I’d wanted a lead forever, and Nyx was bitter about always dancing in the corps. Nyx would have bragged about pushing anyone in the company out of the big picture window in the main studio to be Bellatrix’s understudy, and then she would have made damned sure she stole that part. Nyx was all talk though, and wouldn’t actuallydoall that, but she definitely had the hunger.
Something else was going on, and it had something to do with why she flipped out after we told her about those old conspiracy theories with dancers fromThe P.We were all almost certain the ballet wasThe Sugar Skull Girl.Still,maybe we needed to be looking into it harder.
Merlin bragged about getting in as a minion, and I really hoped he hadn’t said that to Beyla’s face. Merlin and Nicolai kept going off on these tangents about harems, and they were getting so far ahead of themselves. I was a warlock, and yeah, we enjoyed having lots of people we cared about around us, but not every witch or warlock was the same. Beyla could be a lone witch, she didn’t fall for Merlin’s tricks after all, so she might also be totally asexual like Nyx.
I needed them to be less focused on harems and sex, and more concerned about what had her so spooked. And with those two, it was going to be complicated… they were both hyper-focused on sex, and now that Nicolai had met his perfect partner and Merlin had met someone he actually liked and didn’t want to treat like garbage, they were both acting like virgins.
“Guy!” I yelled. “Seriously! You said she wouldn’t be a bet. Just because she’s a witch doesn’t mean she’s even into that. We might all be into her, but she’s shown zero signs that she wants any of us. She might have a policy about fishing in the company pond, shit, she might not even like dating dancers. Stop thinking with your dicks. I think she’s in trouble.”
“Duh,” Merlin said. “Bellatrix is probably trying to find a staircase to push her down as we speak. She’s coming for you too, bro.”
“It’s not Bellatrix,” I said. “Nyx, Arden, and I told her to change when she came out in red. She refused, and told us it was stupid no one in the entire company could wear a color because of one person. That was after she found glass in her pointe shoes and survived one round of Julian trying to mess with her head. I think it has something to do with this ballet. What understudy on the planet is adamant they don’t want the lead? I think this has something to do with why this ballet got canceled the first time, and why Marsden made us sign those creepy NDAs in blood.”
“Bro, I love you, but please don’t spin this into one of those stupid conspiracy theories you love so much,” Nicolai groaned.
“No, wait!” Merlin said. “The NDA was fucked up. Why doesn’t he want us talking about a ballet? He hasn’t even announced it to the public. Marsden is a publicity whore, right? We’ve seen a little of this ballet. Something major had to have happened that it got canceled the first time, because it certainly wasn’t funding. We usually would have held a huge gala to announce the ballet, so he could start getting funding for sets and costumes… don’t pretend like you didn’t notice that hasn’t happened!”
I hadn’t even thought about the fundraising gala. I wasn’t famous like Arden, Nicolai, or Merlin. Sure, I had people flirt with me, and I flirted back, but I didn’t bring in nearly the same donations as they did. A ballet with Bellatrix, Arden, Nicolai, and Merlin as leads should have had Marsden throwing an ostentatious gala, and parading all of them around like pieces of meat.
As one of the leads, I would have been on display too, and likely been subjected to the pawing of ballet patrons who liked to think they owned a piece of me because they paid for my costume.
“Oh, shit,” Nicolai said. “I hadn’t even considered that. Marsden only commissions the best sets and costumes. How is he going to pay for them? No one is going to buy tickets to a ballet that has no publicity. He hasn’t even promoted a mystery ballet with the four of us dancing with Bellatrix. He could, in theory, announce a ballet that no one is going to know about until opening night, and it’s got his most famous dancers as the leads. Patrons would eat that up… but he’s not even doing that.”
