Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
Romeo Ballet Academy, Sanctum
“ D o the burns still hurt?” I furrow my brow in concentration as I wrap the final gauze dressing around the back of Swan’s thighs.
He’s lying on the floor in front of the dresser, pillowing his head on his arms.
He’s wearing the Romeo dance uniform. For the men, it’s a gold tank top and dance belt. The dance belt is like a thong and frames his gorgeous ass in a seriously distracting way.
The scalds looked worse this morning. There was no way that Swan would be able to pull on his tights over them.
Of course, stubborn jerk that he is, he still tried to. His hiss of pain, however, had me urging him to lie down, while I reached for our emergency first aid kit.
Every dancer has one because injuries are simply a way of life. No one else is going to treat us.
I’m already dressed in my golden leotard and tights. The Romeo emblem is embroidered on the chest: a purple rose with thorns encircling it.
Pale early morning light washes through the window over our bedroom.
I glance happily at Swan’s bed, which last night became our bed.
Our nest.
This morning I added the blanket from my bed, along with Ambrose’s jersey. Swan and I both included our sleep clothes, building them into walls.
It’s the only nest that I’ve built.
I don’t care that some Omegas would laugh at it. I’m proud.
I smile as I check that the dressing isn’t too tight and then pat it, tenderly. “All done.”
“Do I get a lollipop?”
I tilt my head. “Do doctors really give those out?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never been to one.”
“Well, I give kisses.”
Swan pushes himself up, gracefully. Then he claims his kiss, and it makes me melt as much as the first time.
“Thank you.” Swan touches the edge of the gauze.
I know that he means for more than patching him up.
Thank you for caring.
Thank you for thinking that he deserves that care.
I kneel up at the ancient dresser, which stands next to the dilapidated wardrobe on one side and a cracked sink and mirror on the other.
The dresser is littered with brushes, bottles of water, and hair clips. Swan snatches his tights, which are draped over one end.
“What time is it?” He asks.
I glance at the cheap, plastic watch that lies at the back of the dresser. “Just gone five. We have some time until breakfast.”
My stomach takes the opportunity to grumble loudly.
I grimace in sympathy.
Hell, I’m starving.
“The delights of oatmeal.” Swan sighs. “Exciting.”
He carefully wriggles into his tights. Everybody wears the same uniform.
We must look immaculate.
Ladders in tights lead to corrections .
Since Swan is notorious for climbing walls, falling into hedges, and fighting, it’s one of his most frequently broken rules.
And corrections.
I check myself in the mirror to make sure that I’ll pass inspection, adjusting my bun to ensure that it’s the right height.
“Here, I’ll do it.” Swan stands behind me, checking my hair with his elegant fingers.
He’s always been better at this than me.
It makes my scalp tingle pleasurably.
I wish that he’d never stop touching me.
This is a familiar routine. Ever since he became my mentor, Swan would check me over before we left for class each morning. He wants to make sure that I won’t be in trouble because my uniform is wrong.
It’s ironic that he cares about me not breaking rules, when he’s such a rebel.
Plus, when I have been caught out, he’s tried to take the punishment for me.
This time, however, it’s different.
Because I know how those fingers feel stroking across my nipples. How they can excite my clit. What those fingers feel like when they’re inside me, driving me to an orgasm that made me shake and scream…
My breathing speeds up. My cheeks flush.
When Swan’s gaze meets mine in the mirror, he looks startled for a moment. Then too knowing.
Slowly, he leans over and ghosts his lips to the sensitive skin of my bare neck. I ball my hands on my lap, willing myself not to move.
When he deepens the kiss lingeringly, I shiver.
Then he draws his thumb slowly from the base of my neck to the top of my spine. “I’ve wanted to do that every morning for so fucking long.”
My eyes widen.
Then my stomach growls again, and the moment is broken.
I redden. “I could devour even burned oatmeal right now.”
Swan’s eyes light up. “I have something better than that, Ash Queen.”
He twirls around and dives to his bed, before rummaging around underneath the mattress. Then he pulls out a large, scarlet apple and holds it aloft like it’s a crown.
“The spoils,” he declares.
My mouth waters.
How many months has it been, since I’ve eaten an apple?
“Where’d you get that?” I demand.
Swan is going to get himself killed.
“Stole it,” Swan says, proudly.
“I figured, thief. When?”
“ Pfft , unimportant.” Swan swaggers back to me, before dropping to his knees and holding it out to me on his palms. “It’s a gift.”
Suddenly, I notice the shift in his tone and the hope in his eyes.
My heart clenches.
We have no money. No way to leave the academy and buy anything. We don’t even have access to materials to make each other presents.
I wish that Swan wouldn’t take such risks to steal gifts but I appreciate it more than anything every time that he does.
This academy takes and takes and fucking takes from us dancers.
The owners of this company are billionaires. Olivia Romeo lives in luxury, while we starve.
This isn’t stealing. It’s survival.
“Thanks, Feathers.” I reach to cup Swan’s face. “Let’s share it.”
“I got it for you.”
“Perhaps, I’m an unconventional Omega who enjoys feeding her Beta too.”
He grins. “It’s your gift. You can use it however you like. But I enjoy handfeeding my Omega.”
When he holds the apple up to my mouth, I take a bite.
The fruit is sweet and crisp, making a satisfying crunching sound. I moan, savoring the freshness as I chew.
Swan watches me satisfied, before he takes a bite from the other side.
“We’re almost like ordinary people now.” He lounges next to me, holding up the apple so that we can take alternate bites. “Do you think that they get ready like this in the morning and share their food?”
I bite my lip.
Swan’s been brought up in the academy for so many years that he only knows what the other Betas tell him about life outside its walls. I don’t know if it’s harder for me who has lived an ordinary life or for him who can only dream about it.
I nod. “When we get out of here, we can wake up late, even sleep in. I don’t know, nine a.m. or something.”
“We could have pancakes,” Swan says, dreamily. “I’ve always wanted to try them with syrup and that chocolate stuff.”
“Binge boxsets, stuff our faces with ice-cream, and go to bars,” I list, excitedly. “You’d love dancing in a club.”
“Wow, all that choice though. How do people decide what to do with free time like that?”
I hum. “I don’t know. After my parents died, I had to get up early and do chores. Jacob was big on everyone earning their keep, especially Omegas with no Alpha to protect them. The whole ethos of the Cinders academy is different. The dancers there are encouraged to work out on the ranch. It’s austere with an emphasis on nature, hard work, and fresh air. Pretty much the opposite of the strictly regimented caged world of this Romeo academy, where everything is about technical precision. But back in the Cinders pack, I felt like a real life Cinderella. If it wasn’t for my cousin, then things would have been worse. He played with me and tried to make my chores fun.”
“Wait, the knothead who bullied Amby?” Swan takes a vicious bite out of the apple.
“Silas was trained to do that by his dad,” I reply, defensively. Silas is what I have always called Silvanus. “Plus, this feud between the families has been going on for generations. Cinders are taught to hate Romeos from the moment that they’re born. It didn’t help that Amby kept outshining Silas. As Head Alpha, Jacob gave his son shit every time that he came home with a lower grade or scored worse on the football field than his rival’s son. Why do you think Silas hated Amby so much?”
I both loved and hated the days at school that Ambrose did well…because it meant that he’d outperformed Silvanus.
At home, I knew that meant the crack of a paddle.
It meant cradling my arms around Silvanus, while he pretended that he wasn’t crying.
Yet that doesn’t change the fact that Silvanus bullied Ambrose.
Once, I was meant to meet Silvanus on the field after football practice. In horror, I saw Silvanus and three hulking Alpha players pinning Ambrose to the ground.
Silvanus’ lavender eyes gleamed, as he held Ambrose down by the shoulders.
My nose wrinkled at the scent of Silvanus’ curdled scent.
My cousin had the same blond curls as me. He looked like an angel, meaning that his rivalry ran to his popularity with the both male and female Omegas in school as well, but his thrill seeking, self-destructive personality didn’t match his looks.
In fact, it matched Ambrose’s.
If they would only accept how similar they were, then they could have become best friends.
If one wasn’t a Cinders, and the other a Romeo.
“Silas,” I gasped, “what are you doing?”
The rest of the team were simply standing around and casually chatting and laughing.
What the fuck?
Ambrose’s expression was shuttered.
His beautiful golden hair was smeared with toothpaste. His jersey was stained and ripped.
A pile of empty Gatorades littered the ground next to his head.
“He made mistakes on the field.” Silvanus darted me a quick glance. “It’s only a bit of hazing. The bitch needs to know his place on the team. Wait for me inside, Juliet.”
Except, I was certain that my cousin wanted me to see this.
He was humiliating Ambrose in front of me on purpose.
My cheeks flamed. I hugged my arms around myself.
Had Silvanus guessed how much I was crushing on our enemy? Was this happening because of me?
I couldn’t help how obsessed I’d become over the last few months.
I couldn’t stop myself constantly checking for Ambrose’s updates on social media, watching him as he leaned against his locker, constantly thinking about him when I should have been concentrating in science, doodling his name in the back of my exercise books.
I’d been listening to the gossip, desperate to find out whether he’d made a Promise Bond to another Omega… or kissed anyone .
He hadn’t.
In that way at least, Ambrose was different to my playboy cousin, who’d dated half the Beta cheerleading team.
Yet the constant ache inside me had been killing me.
Every moment that I wasn’t able to look at or think about Ambrose, I felt like I was dying.
Silvanus held up a new Gatorade, before tipping it to Ambrose lips. “Lucky number five. Drink up. I want to see whether you can vomit further than you can throw.”
The other Alphas laughed.
Ambrose narrowed his eyes, attempting to turn away his head. But Silvanus gripped him hard by the chin to hold him in place.
Fuck this.
I marched toward Silvanus, narrowing my eyes.
Silvanus looked panicked, paling.
If I acted rebellious in public, then I’d be marked as a Reject. But I was still going to stop this.
I simply needed to be smart about it.
“Hazing is against the rules. We should be obedient.” I clutched Silvanus firmly by the shoulder. “Silas, why don’t we leave now? Uncle hates to get bad reports about you. He’s bound to hear about this otherwise.”
Silvanus flinched.
Then he attempted to look tough like he hadn’t just dropped his mask in front of the rest of the team. “Whatever. We need to get back to the ranch anyway.” He hurled the Gatorade against the bleachers, before smiling up at me. “Home, yeah?”
It was impossible not to smile back.
Silvanus was the only light in my world on the ranch.
I loved my cousin but I loved Ambrose too.
It was like being torn in half, being caught between them.
The next day, I opened my locker to discover a small, rose shaped paper note had been slipped through the gap in the side.
My heart skipped a beat, when I sniffed it: Cognac with toasted almonds.
Then I read the message, which had been scrawled on it in messy handwriting with sloping letters:
Romeo, Romeo, Romeo!
After that, I lived for the days that I’d open my locker to find a note with a quote on it from Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare.
My favorite, and clearly Ambrose’s favorite too because he wrote it the most often with doodled decorations, was:
Juliet is the sun…
I hoarded those secret messages from Ambrose, even if we still couldn’t openly talk to each other.
Was it possible to be in a relationship, when it was carried out via nothing but secret Shakespeare quotes?
Ambrose still appeared most days with busted lips and black eyes.
Once, when I saw Ambrose alone by his locker, I decided to be daring.
My heart felt like it would beat out of my chest, but something about Ambrose gave me courage.
After all, I didn’t think that a Romeo would be daring enough to write to a Cinders.
I slipped off the glass slipper necklace, which Nova had gifted to me for Christmas. I could pretend that I lost it. I brushed past Ambrose, close enough to press the necklace into his hand.
For a moment, we were touching, as he took the glass slipper from me.
His breath hitched, sharply.
I smiled, hurrying away down the corridor before either of us could be caught.
At least I’d have his rose notes, and he’d have my glass slipper.
Now, I look down, hurting at the memory.
Does Ambrose still have the necklace like I have his notes?
“Take the last bite.” Swan holds the apple up to me, and I nibble around the core, savoring the last of the sweetness.
I lick my lips, as Swan hurls the core with impressive accuracy into the bin by the side of the wardrobe. “Are you ready?”
“You aren’t.” Swan snatches a violet rose pin off the dresser and slips it behind my ear. “Now you are.”
“Hey.” I pull the pin out of my hair and point it at Swan like it’s a dagger. “This isn’t part of the uniform for class.”
“Boring.”
“I’ll show you boring.” I dive toward Swan taking him by surprise and slide the pin into his thick hair with a satisfied smile. “There, now you’re pretty.”
He scowls, which only looks funnier with the flower in his hair. “Handsome.”
He doesn’t move to take the rose out, however, as if it’s a gift from his Omega Queen.
Fitting.
“My pretty Beta,” I purr, knowing the impact that it’ll have on Swan.
He lets out a shuddering breath. “That’s cheating. Plus, if I turn up with this that jerk Rem will claim loudly that I should be dancing with the girls again.”
“ Again? ” My expression clouds. “What a dick.”
Swan arches his brow. “Wow, you’re giving him that much credit? I thought that we’d agreed he was a spoiled brat who was only admitted here because of daddy’s connections and has gone on to become failed dancer, failed friend, and failed Beta .”
I pull a face. “Ouch.”
Remington deserves it. He pretended to be friends with Swan when they were young, only to mock him behind his back.
He was faking the friendship all along.
It must have fucking hurt Swan to discover the truth.
Yet it didn’t stop Swan from helping the other dancers. It takes a certain type of strength to not build up walls against making friends after something like that.
“See, he’s multi-talented.” Swan smirks.
“Like Ari. Those two assholes are well matched.”
Swan adjusts the rose in his hair, shuddering. “Yuck, don’t say her name three times, or she may climb out of the mirror with those gropey hands of hers.”
Ice runs down my spine.
I twist to Swan in shock. “She tried to touch you…?”
Swan shrugs. “Luckily, I’ve had a lot of practice at leaping. I’m good at twisting and jumping away.”
I growl. “I’m going to kick her ass.”
Swan laughs.
Rude.
“Before or after she kicks yours?” Swan falls quiet, before he grips me by the shoulders and carefully turns me to face him. “JuJu, is Ari’s mean girl clique giving you a hard time? You can tell me. It’s my duty to look out for you, as your mentor. I won’t allow anyone to bully you. I always find you and protect you, right?”
Except, that’s the problem.
Swan’s method of protection is snarling and flying into a vicious fight that usually ends up with his ass getting kicked by the Dance Master.
I need to protect Swan , from himself more than anything.
There’s no way I’m telling him that.
Instead, I hum in agreement.
All of a sudden, Swan yelps and scrambles to his feet. Then he leaps across onto the bed.
“What is it?” I demand.
“Roach,” Swan pants, pointing at the wooden floorboards next to the wardrobe.
I peer at the small bug, which is scurrying back into a crack. “It’s only a beetle.”
“You say that like it’s any better,” Swan says, aghast.
I hide my smile, pretending to shoo the bug away. “You’re safe.”
I stand, stretching. Then I stroll to join Swan on the bed. The nest is warm and smells of not only both our mingled scents but the ghost who’s missing: our Alpha.
Yet he’s a man who doesn’t know that he should be here between us.
Swan meets my gaze like he’s thinking exactly the same thing. “We’ll only be safe, when we have our own pack.”
I hold Ambrose’s jersey to my nose, breathing in his scent. “We don’t know that he’s—”
“We do.” Swan reaches to entangle my hand with his. “The academy is ablaze with gossip about the CEO having returned from running the English branch of the company. I know that Amby came back for us.”
“Don’t.” Sharply, I pull my hand away from Swan’s. “He left, and in four years, he hasn’t bothered to send us a single message. He’s said only three sentences to me, and I’ve never spoken to him. He wasn’t my friend, even if he was yours. How can you…?”
“He’s not our friend. He’s our fated.”
“That’s a myth.”
“It’s a fact.”
We glare at each other.
“Go away.” I pout.
Swan arches his brow. “This is my bed.”
He has a point.
I snatch the blanket and wind it into a snake shape, before worming it between us like a barrier. “Then stay on your side of the nest.”
Swan bursts out laughing. “Is this an Omega thing? Do you get territorial about your nest?”
I can’t help laughing too.
When have I been able to stay mad at Swan?
“Maybe? Nests are new to me.” I playfully edge the blanket further and further onto Swan’s side, until he’s laughing even more brightly and squirming dangerously close to the edge of the bed. Finally, he’s balancing like the incredible athlete that he is in order not to fall off. “Definitely an Omega instinct thing. I’m claiming nesting rights.”
When Swan lets out a gasp, waving his arms wildly like he’s about to topple off, I hurriedly grab the blanket and toss it to the bottom of the bed.
“Nesting rights extended again. I need my Beta to nuzzle. Get back here.” I hold out my arms to Swan.
Swan grins, enthusiastically throwing himself across the bed toward me to save himself.
He bounces, settling onto my side of the mattress again.
He wraps his arms around me. “I’ll have to remember not to piss off my Omega. They’re more fierce about their nests than I’d realized.”
“Of course, they’re also possessive of the people who they let into them.”
“I love you.” Swan’s eyes flash, before he twists to me.
He kisses me, hard and claiming.
Whatever happens during this intense week of rehearsals, at the end of it in the R & J Contest, and after it, if the tradition of the Ballet Bonding Night truly occurs, it’ll happen to both of us.
Together.
Because I won’t be parted from this man.
Yet we only have minutes left, before we need to leave for breakfast.
Then like every day for the last four years, we’ll be separated for our classes.
Swan will face Dimitri.
And I’ll face the terrifying Alpha, the Dance Master.