Page 62 of The Paranormal Investigation Bureau
Everyone liked to think an incubus or succubus was useless in a supernatural fight because their gifts didn’t always work on people. But the thing is that they could make you want to have sex all day, and bring all our fantasies to life, but they couldn’t bring something out that wasn’t naturally there.
Merlin’s mom was famous on Broadway, and his dad was a career politician. So theonlyreason Merlin didn’t have an army of bodyguards with him here, like he did growing up, was that his parents knew damn well he was going to go off and be a dancer and so had taught him how to fight.
Merlin was damn near an expert at dealing with stalkers. He made plenty of the ballerinas jealous because this entirely different side of him came out if he ever caught someone drugging a drink, or trying to leave with someone barely conscious. He beat the shit out of anyone he caught doing that, no matter what magical species they were, then made sure the girl got home okay. If his date took offense that he left them to prevent a woman from being raped, they were dead to him after that. He blocked their number, all their social media accounts, and just pretended like they didn’t exist anymore.
Merlin didn’t lose it often, but you just did not want to be on the receiving end of it when he did. Needless to say, he was perfectly capable of defending himself. Merlin didn’t take a lot of things in life seriously, except his ballet career. He’d been in love exactly once in his life, back when he was seventeen, with a ballerina at the residential academy he was training at.
She had been using him though. She thought his mother and father’s had bought him a place at the school, and would get him a contract when he graduated. She hoped to ride those coattails into a ballet company. Merlin got into that school of his own accord. His parents flat out told him if he wanted to be a ballet dancer, he would need to earn it, and he did.
She ambushed him right before their last performance, when scouts from ballet companies all over the world were sniffing around. She pretended like she was desperately in love and couldn’t be parted from him. She asked him to have his parents pull whatever strings they were going to pull for him for her too so that they could stay together.
He was an incubus, and would have been able to sense that she was faking, but the fact that they had been dance partners that long—and that she thought he wouldn’t have gotten accepted anywhere without a leg up—broke his heart, and he lost it.
He didn’t lay a single finger on her. Merlin wouldn’t do that to a woman. Instead, he gave her a verbal smack down. He could have threatened to ruin her career, and easily made it happen, but he didn’t. He wouldn’t tell us what he said, but she refused to come out of her dressing room for the show.
Merlin danced with her understudy from a younger class, and subsequently got invited to joinThe P.She didn’t get a single offer, and companies didn’t take it well that she missed a performance because she was upset about a man. You were expected to put your breakups and heartaches to one side, get on stage, and not let a single person in the audience see you were upset. The only excuse for missing a show when you were a baby dancer was an injury, and it'd better be a serious one. You didn’t get mental health breaks until you were famous.
I didn’t know Merlin then, but I knew him now. He was letting himself feel something for Beyla. He pushed that down for a long time, and acted like an asshole. Merlin was going to take this personally. I think we were all glad she’d ended up here, but not how.
We were all sitting on the couch, processing everything, while Bevan dug into his laptop. Something hit me.
“You don’t think those two Unseelie assholes were deranged enough to convince her boyfriend to break her feet and kill her parents, do you? Perhaps that’s why she never ended up here until now,” I asked.
“Bitches!” Merlin hissed.
“No one can see the future or manipulate fate like that,” Bevan said. “Even if they somehow knew Beyla was going to end up here, they wouldn’t have known putting her through that would give them the results they wanted. It could have had the exact opposite effect for all they knew. She took it to mean she shouldn’t be a ballet dancer at all, but was receptive to the idea of coming here. Beyla could have thought fate was against her being atThe Pand then be off dancing at another company. Marsden and Santiago wouldn’t have gotten a ballet trained agent because that wouldneverhappen, unless fate were messing with her.”
“I still want to kill Marsden,” I pouted.
I didn’t think I would ever agree with Arden on anything, but I was with him on that. Bevan looked up from his laptop with this giant smirk on his face.
“Beyla just said we couldn’t do anything to him until the curse is broken, so people don’t die in the future. She said nothing about letting our opinions known if we pull the show off. I imagine she’s got some… feelings… that she wants to work out on his face, too.”
Fuck, I loved Bevan.
Merlin let out a moan.
“Does anyone else think it would be super hot to watch tiny Beyla just wail on him? I popped a boner in my dance belt when she clotheslined Bellatrix!”
“I get Arden scared the shit out of her in rehearsal, but something tells me she should be more afraid of Beyla.”
“The three of them should be scared of all of us,” Bevan said. “Bellatrix doesn’t even know what’s going on. Marsden let her go unchecked until we got here. They are all counting on no one knowing what Santiago looks like. We have alotof resources at our disposal. Beyla has the entire Paranormal Investigation Bureau behind her, so we aren’t totally helpless.
“I know how to find things on the internet. Think of your families. Nicolai, you’ve got a shady uncle who loves that you’re a dancer, and who knows how to find people and cut their thumbs off if they’ve fucked your family over. Merlin, your dad can probably access the files of Unseelie refugees, right? I mean, Santiago Suarez probably isn’t his real name, but I would imagine the government kept tabs on him if the Unseelie wanted him back that badly… especially if it’s true that they made a big mess in Mexico when he came to the states.”
I fell out laughing and smacked Bevan on the back.
“I’d kiss you, if I was into that.”
“Gross, Nicolai!” Bevan said, wrinkling his nose.
“What? I’m fucking hot. Everyone wants to kiss me.”
“Not everyone. I don’t kiss every hot guy who wants to kiss me. I don’t even think about it with either of you.”
“Wait, seriously?” Merlin asked. “Do you know how many likes I get on social media?”
Bevan just rolled his eyes.
