Page 6 of The Paranormal Investigation Bureau
“I’m sorry. Your parents were witches. Did they kill him for hurting you?”
This pained look passed over Beyla’s face then, like that was the wrong question to ask, but I wanted to know the answer, too. If someone hadn’t hurt this human, my gryphon would be happy to take care of him. I barely knew Beyla, but I did know that I had a problem with a man breaking a woman’s feet, even if she didn’t use them to dance.
You just don’t do that shit. I hurt every woman I slept with, but it was always because they wanted me to, and they had safe words if they wanted me to stop or slow down. I never broke bones. Fuck, I never even broke the skin.
“My parents passed in a car accident a few days later. I mean… he went missing, but I don’t think it was them. They didn’t have time. They were always with me.”
Nyx seemed to accept that, and only I knew why. It shocked me when she confessed her secret to Beyla.
“I didn’t go to the academy attached toThe P.I’m Canadian, and we have a similar company there. I got into the school, then got accepted into the company. One of the principal dancers took an interest in me when I was in the corps. I wasn’t interested, but… he became abusive and told me that if I didn’t date him, he’d ruin my chances of dancing anywhere in Canada ever again.
“It took me a while, but I said fuck him and left Canada entirely. I auditioned here and got accepted. A few ground rules. You’re only going to get ahead if you fuck Marsden. Stay away from Ivory and Bellatrix, those bitches can smell blood and will try to ruin your career if they think you’re a threat.”
“Also, avoid Nicolai and Merlin,” I said. “Marsden is not the only sexual predator in the company.”
Beyla raised an eyebrow.
“Anyone else I should know about?”
“Julian,” Nyx said. “Don’t tell him anything you don’t want the entire company to know.”
“What can you tell me about this new ballet we’re doing?” Beyla asked.
“Not a damn thing.”
Chapter6
Beyla
Exactly what game was Marsden trying to play, anyway? I’d seen videos of him dancing before, and used to have enormous respect for him. Meeting him in person changed all that. He was a genius on stage, but anywhere else he was just a horny fairy that hoarded secrets. Secrets that were preventing me from doing my job.
I was trying to grill him for information, and he kept talking about my legs. Yes, the great Marsden King had a leg fetish. He wasn’t even trying to look me in the eye when I was talking to him.
I ended up feeling disgusted and asked for the keys to my apartment, having decided to revisit this conversation when I had a pair of frumpy sweatpants on. I thought maybe my new roommate could tell me something.
Shehadto be a banshee. Every banshee at the Bureau Academy had hated me. It looked like things were going that way with Nyx, too, until she found out what Derek did to me. I didn’t fabricate an entirely new identity for this assignment. I could have, but I knew how dancers worked. If I said I studied at a different academy and had been dancing with another company for the last five years, that could easily be debunked with one phone call.
I was honest about certain parts of my life and lied about the rest. Nyx seemed to believe me, and so did Arden. They were both pretty cool. Arden was sexy as hell. I knew who he was because I still followedThe P.He was one of their top soloists, and any article that was written about him would mention his motorcycle and tattoos. Healwaysplayed the bad boy or villain.
He had sandy hair, that was always in his eyes, and his eyes were such a dazzling hazel color that they were nearly golden. I knew he was a gryphon, so his leaps and jumps consistently defied gravity. He was nice to me, but there was this dangerous look in those golden eyes… like he’d hurt me if I let him.
I wasn’t there to date. I wasn’t there to make friends. Nyx and Arden warned me about the mean girls, playboys, and gossips. Let them come, I thought, they were minor compared to what was going to happen when this ballet turned lethal.
Nyx and Arden couldn’t help me as Marsden had made them sign NDAs in blood so they couldn’t discuss this ballet outside the company. Arden was the only one who was suspicious of this, and he was digging into the ballet, too.
He’d already hit up my next stop. Had Marsden removed any traces ofThe Sugar Skull Girlfrom the company records so his dancers wouldn’t revolt if they saw it? I knew I could stop this production by letting it slip to the company gossip, Julian, that the ballet was lethal, but it wouldn’t stop the problem. According to Kaine, this was not the first time an artistic director atThe Phad tried to pull this off, and it wouldn’t be the last even if I stopped the production.
I knew none of these people had been alive one hundred and fifty years ago, but everyone was a suspect. Arden seemed to want to stick around, so I picked his brain. Nyx pulled out some wine, and I was slowly sipping while they were getting drunk.
“There’snothingin the company records?” I asked.
“Not a damn thing,” Arden said.
“It’s weird,” Nyx said. “They have sketches of costumes under glass, from way back when the company was founded. They have records on everything. If this was attempted once, there should be at least something, right? We don’t even know why it was canceled.”
I did, and they deserved to know. Still, there was enough gossip that went on behind the scenes in the ballet world for me to start any before I had the entire story. Kaine clearly wasn’t a dancer, he didn’t even jump up and down to celebrate when he was happy. He would do this weird grunt and fist pump.
Kaine didn’t even follow ballet until I moved in with him. I knew everything he told me was what had been passed on to him by the people who only hired me because I could do ballet. I needed to hear the truth from Marsden, and I wouldn’t leave his office until I did. And if he wanted me here, I had conditions. I was supposed to be keeping all these dancers safe, and I couldn’t do that unless they knew they were in danger.
