Chapter 32
EVELINA
“Very sloppy, Evelina. Again.”
Madame Kuzmina’s voice comes from her usual seat in the fourth row of the theater.
“What?” Milena mutters under her breath next to me on stage. “Dude, that was perfect. You were perfect. What the fuck is her problem?”
“We’re waiting, Ms. Nikitin,” Kuzmina says coolly.
I roll my shoulders and stand tall, then turn to her. “Of course, Madame.”
Maybe that last run-through was perfect. Or maybe, as I’m starting to figure out, perfection is all about perception.
Sometimes, what you think is perfect only looks that way from one particular angle. Look at it from a different one, and you see how flawed it really is.
And yes, I’m talking about Vaughn.
I repeat Aurora's variation from the third act of Sleeping Beauty, focusing on the pure technique the role demands. But my mind is only half on the steps.
The other half is unraveling.
I’m unraveling.
I’d have to be insane to say this mad, wild thing with Vaughn is perfect.
It’s obviously not, especially with this utterly confusing line we're tiptoeing between him steadfastly refusing to call us a couple, but then also being so insanely possessive and protective of me that it takes my breath away.
But if I can leave aside the “relationship” part and focus just on the physical, then…yeah…from a certain angle, that part is perfect.
He pushes me to my limits, then shows me that those really aren’t my limits at all and takes me further. He unlocks parts of me I’ve kept shut away because I was scared of them. The way he makes me come, and the way he fucks me…my God, the way he fucks me…
He’s awakened another side to the Evelina who's spent her whole life up till now hiding behind a pink tulle princess persona. For the first time in my life, I feel like I’m breathing with both lungs.
I feel like I’m finally, truly seeing all of me when I look in the mirror.
…And yet, there’s a dark side to what he’s awoken in me, too. A new piece of who I am that appears to be clashing with the “me” I’ve always been.
Clashing, fighting, and consuming.
And it’s starting to scare the hell out of me.
Because as much as I crave the rough, unhinged brutality of his touch, I’m starting to wonder if that part of me he’s unlocked is good for me.
Is he freeing me or corrupting me? Because even though I do feel that I’m seeing my true self now when I look in the mirror, I’m not sure I like what I see.
I’m starting to worry that there’s a reason my subconscious buried this dark part of myself that Vaughn has now uncovered, so much so that I’ve gone almost radio silent since we got back from France three days ago—sleeping at my house, avoiding his calls, texting back only sparingly.
Maybe that’s cowardly. But it’s also self-preservation. When I look in the mirror and see "all of myself", I need to be able to trust what I see.
I need to know that those other sides of me—the ones that crave a certain darkness that only he seems to be able to give me—are me, not just him projecting onto me.
Brooklyn and Milena invite me out to drinks after rehearsal. But I decide to stay late and work on the variation.
“You know you were perfect, right?” Brooklyn says sympathetically, eying Milena. “That’s just Kuzmina pulling her usual Gulag prison guard routine. Seriously, you were fantastic today.”
I smile, shrugging. “Thanks. I still want to hit it a few more times, you know?”
That’s only a half-truth. I’m not staying late to work the Sleeping Beauty piece because I think I need the practice.
I’m staying late because if I go home right now, there’s going to be a mirror with a reflection I’m not quite ready to face yet.
It’s also why I’m going to be working on stage, not in the rehearsal studio.
When my friends are gone, I step out onto the dimly lit stage, take my position, and begin.
I start with the relevés, then move into the jumps into attitude en arrière before segueing into the first diagonal.
The music runs through my head, the choreography firmly in my muscle memory as I continue to dance on the silent stage until sweat slicks my skin and my legs are screaming.
Finally, I hit the ending position, panting and gasping for air with my arms raised high overhead.
“So this is why you’ve been avoiding me.”
I almost scream, my heart lurching into my throat at the deep, rough baritone. I whirl, eyes wide and trying to adjust as I peer into the darkness.
Vaughn stands from where he’s been sitting maybe five or six rows back and makes his way over to the aisle. He slowly walks down toward the stage, and I swallow when he effortlessly hoists himself up onto it.
“You’re very good,” he murmurs, stopping a few feet away, towering over me.
“Thanks,” I mumble, looking at my feet.
“But you have been avoiding me,” Vaughn says in the silence of the stage. “Why.”
I shrug as casually as I can. ““I haven’t been. I’ve just been busy.”
He cocks a brow.
“You do understand that this…” I gesture broadly at the stage and theater around us, “isn’t just some little hobby, right? It’s my job, Vaughn. My career.”
“I don’t believe I’ve ever suggested otherwise,” he growls.
“Well…” I swallow heavily. “It keeps me busy, okay?”
“I’m sure it does,” he replies. “But now why don't you tell me the real reason you’ve been pseudo-ghosting me.”
“I’m not ghosting you,” I snap.
“Avoiding me, letting my calls go to voicemail. The bare minimum of text messages to reassure me you’re alive.”
I shudder under his piercing blue eyes.
“I don’t like it,” he says coldly.
“Did you need me for Syndicate stuff?” I arch my brows at him. “Were any of those calls or texts about our relationship as Adept and Acolyte?”
Vaughn’s mouth thins.
“Because, unless it's that,” I shrug, “I have to practice.”
I turn away. Instantly, I’m gasping as his firm hand wraps around my bare arm, yanking me back to face him. He really is looming over me now, invading my space, filling it with his familiar scent.
“Why don’t we drop the childish bullshit,” he growls, his eyes narrowing, “and you tell me what the fuck is going on.”
“I…” I look away, chewing my lip. “Maybe I need time to think, after Paris.”
“Why,” he murmurs darkly.
“Maybe…” I look down.
“Answer the fucking question, Eveli—”
“Maybe I don’t like what you turn me into!!”
The stage goes pin-drop silent, and I wince.
“That came out wrong,” I sigh. “I just—”
Vaughn surges into me and cups my jaw in his big hand. A shiver ripples through me as he tilts my gaze up to his, immolating me with his piercing eyes.
“I think you like it just fine,” he rumbles. “I think you crave it, actually.”
Heat floods my core. But I steel myself, meeting his gaze steadily and shaking my head. “No. That isn’t me.”
“But it is,” he says tightly. “You’ve just spent your whole life pretending it's not. You’re welcome, by the way.”
I bark out a laugh, escaping his grip. “For what? Brutal sex that leaves me bruised and battered? For fucking me with a goddamn knife?!”
He rolls his eyes. “It was only the hilt. Don’t be dramatic.”
“Jesus, Vaughn!” I yell. “Do you even hear yourself?! This has to stop!”
I squeeze my eyes shut, trembling.
“It has to…” I say quietly. “Before I lose myself.”
Silence fills the theater.
“You know how to make it stop. You know how to end it.”
His low voice cuts through the stillness and silence, and a ripple teases up my spine as I open my eyes and look up at him.
“And yet, curiously,” he growls, “you continue to not do so.” His jaw ticks. “Is it because you just can’t get enough of my cock or of the darkness I bring out in you?”
I gasp quietly as he moves back into me, until his firm, muscled body is millimeters from pressing to mine.
“Or is it just because you haven’t dug deep enough into what you really want.”
I swallow thickly, and my brows furrow as I look up into his eyes.
“I just…” I rake my teeth over my bottom lip. “Why do I still feel like your possession?” I say quietly.
“Because you are.”
My brows pinch. “But that’s not what a relationship—”
“This is the only way I know how to do this,” he murmurs quietly. “This is what I can offer you.”
I swallow. “And if I need more?”
“I don’t trust myself to give you more.”
I frown. “Why not?”
“Because the parts of me you haven’t met yet would send you running and screaming.”
I shiver, chewing on my lip as I look up into his eyes. “And what if I want to run and scream?” I whisper.
“Stop it,” he groans.
“Stop what?”
“Being so fucking tempting all the time,” he says darkly. “You’re like a little bunny rabbit bathing in goddamn blood in front of a wolf.” He shakes his head slowly. “How the fuck have you not been devoured by the world yet?”
“Because I’ve stayed away from wolves like you,” I say quietly.
The second the words leave my lips, I shiver as his fingers wrap around my throat, his lips curling into a dark smile.
“No you haven’t,” he growls with a hint of amusement. “You are very much caught in my jaws, Evelina Nikitin.”
Heat pools in my core as he pulls me tight against his strong body, looming over me and sucking the air from my lung with his beautiful icy gaze.
“If nothing else, you’re still my Acolyte. And until you say that goddamn safe word, princess?” He lowers his face to mine until we’re so close we're breathing the same air. “You’re still fucking mine.”
My eyes lock with his.
“So say it,” he growls against my lips. “Just fucking say it.”
Part of me wants to, so badly.
But he’s not playing fair.
He’s too close.
He’s too tempting.
Too consuming, and his lips are too fucking electrifying as they hover a millimeter from mine.
The seconds tick by.
And by.
And I say nothing.
Vaughn’s fingers tighten on my pulse points as I melt against him.
“Too late now, princess.”
His lips close the distance, searing a brutal, claiming, possessive and punishing kiss against mine.
“Now,” he growls against my mouth as I shiver against him. “You’re going to get on your fucking knees, and—”
“No.”
His brow furrows as I pull back from him, hugging my arms around my middle as I shake my head.
“I…I want that,” I say quietly. “I mean I really want that, and all the other madness you bring.”
My throat bobs thickly.
“But I need more, Vaughn.”
His eyes narrow as his jaw ticks.
“More would destroy you,” he finally murmurs. “I can’t give you more.”
I wince. “Then I don’t know what happens now.”
His mouth thins to a line. “Well, I think I do.”
He turns and starts to walk away as I wince.
“But make no mistake, Evelina, me leaving right now is not you saying your safe word. And until you do,” he pause at the edge of the stage and turns, leveling a scorching look at me. “You remain. Fucking. Mine.”