Chapter 28
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Prima Ballet Theater, Sanctum
I hold the pose with Swan in the center of the stage, as he kisses me.
This couldn’t be more public.
And this time, every member of the audience knows that we’re a bonded pack.
They know that our love is real .
There’s never been a bonded pair of principals before, let alone an Omega dancer.
I can hear the excited whispering and rustling of the audience.
The dancers in the cages hunch in exaggerated poses of captivity like they’re hanging in chains or are entangled in puppet strings.
Then Benedict’s score builds. It’s haunting and beautiful.
He’s an amazing composer.
This is Benedict’s dream come true, as much as it’s mine. An Omega is finally having their music heard. After thirty years, Benedict is no longer being silenced.
When Swan pulls back from the kiss, spinning me, my costume twirls out like wings.
Exhilaration races through me, as I throw back my head.
In the background, the Romeo cage breaks open.
Thiago falls to his knees and crawls to the edge like he alone can see our dance.
I’m facing Benedict now, who is lost in his own world on the piano. Vito’s still standing beside him. Ambrose is as well now, dressed in a matching tux to Vito’s but with golden satin lapels that make his hair look like spun gold.
Except, Ambrose is accompanying Benedict on his violin.
I’ve never seen Ambrose play the violin before.
I knew that he played. Benedict has praised him many times, but seeing… hearing him…play is something else.
Every soaring note is torn from Ambrose’s soul. It quivers with a pain that he can’t talk about.
He’s not good with words, the same as Benedict isn’t. But they share a different way of expressing emotion.
Ambrose’s eyes are closed.
He’s transformed.
A god.
He kisses the violin’s strings with the bow like they’re lovers.
Decadent waves of music drift across the stage. They make my stomach flip, and my feet move faster.
Swan is caught in their spell, leaping more daringly.
He’s on fire.
It’s because we can hear it in the music, as well as burning through our hearts, the love .
This play that we’re dancing, which is full of heart and passion, is made stronger and not weaker by Swan and I being lovers.
We’re better dancers because we have bonds.
In every stroke of the strings, Ambrose is promising us his eternal love and protection.
He plays with an intensity and symbiosis with Benedict that takes away my breath: Omega and Alpha as they should be.
They’re speaking through their music, as Swan and I are speaking through our dance.
Will the world stop to listen?
Swan elegantly lifts me, cradling me in a fluid moment. When our gazes meet, our eyes flare.
It’s electric.
My heart speeds up, as the music swells to a crescendo.
I can’t entirely lose myself to this moment because I know who is in the front row watching this.
How will Olivia react?
We’re about to act out Mom’s murder, and everybody only thinks that they’re being entertained.
But I can do this.
I must.
When Swan lifts me in a breathtaking move, before catching me like he always has and always will, he pulls me closer in our final kiss.
All of a sudden, the music takes on a dissonant, dark shift.
Swan and I freeze.
The lights dim, leaving us in a spotlight alone.
This is it.
With a shocking screech of the violin, the two cages crack open.
A dancer from each cage, who’d been hidden at the back, leap out.
Both are wreathed in black and gray costumes that swirl around them like shadows. Yet the female dancer from the Romeo cage has roses in her hair, and the male dancer from the Cinders has crystals hanging from his curls like glass.
Has Olivia realized what’s going on yet?
Tears smart my eyes.
This is going to be fucking hard.
Swan’s fear and pain feels so real at being discovered in our secret affair that I almost can’t bear to break apart from him.
Except, it is real.
Because we’re both imagining not only that this happened to Mom and Felix but that this could have been us .
In another life, Ambrose wouldn’t have selected and saved us.
Dimitri would have bonded with Swan, or Olivia would have found out about our forbidden love and destroyed us as well.
Our fingers trail across each other’s for the last time.
Swan dramatically tries to protect me, as the shadows dance closer, circling.
The music becomes sharper and more ominous.
When the female shadow snatches Swan by the hair, yanking him away from me, my heart genuinely leaps in my chest.
Swan is spun, thrown, and hurled to the floor in an explosive, aggressive dance routine that breaks my heart.
I fall to my knees in despair.
I hold out my hands, pleading for mercy, but none comes.
Inside the cage, Thiago leaps to his feet, copying my plea.
Then there’s a flash of a knife, a real one that Ambrose selected because it’s as close to the one that he remembers from that night.
I force myself not to look around at the sudden clatter of a seat in the stalls.
Is that Olivia?
I glance out of the corner of my eye at the audience.
Olivia is standing up, horror-stricken.
She’s staring, unable to look away, as Swan tries to pull away but is hauled back, once, twice, then finally a third time, before…
The man slashes the knife across Swan’s throat.
Swan falls to the boards.
The audience gasp.
I arch, before curling into a ball of grief on the stage.
Then the two shadow figures circle me with the knife.
Desperately, I try to crawl between them to reach my dying lover, who outstretches his hand to me. But they leap and stamp, cutting me off.
Crying, I make one final, desperate attempt, snatching hold of Swan’s hand, just as his eyes close.
The shadow man raises his knife above my head.
At that moment, Thiago leaps from the cage.
He wrestles with the man, blocking his attack. They dance around each other in a dark, distorted parody of the dance that’d started the routine between Swan and me, while I rest my head on Swan’s chest.
At last, the knife slashes as if across Thiago’s cheek, and he drops to the boards.
There’s sudden commotion in the front row.
Someone is rushing out of the theater.
It must be Olivia.
Got her.
My expression steels.
The music is building to its dark climax.
My throat is dry. My cheeks are wet.
The shadows descend on me like night. They twirl and dance in furious moves around Swan and I, as we lie on the ground together, the tragic lovers.
They dance closer and closer, until they’re entirely covering us.
The music rises and rises…
When the shadow dancers pull back, I lie with my eyes closed, murdered like my lover.
Ambrose described the scene just like this, even if one of his eyes had been blinded by blood.
I’m holding Swan’s hand. My head is resting on his chest.
We’re close in death at least.
Thiago grieves, pulling himself to his feet to stand over us, protective even now.
When the moon brightens, the light drives the shadow people from the stage.
Finally, the music lightens, the violin soars like it’s our souls rising to heaven or the stars that twinkle that bit brighter because we’re joining them.
Swan surreptiously squeezes my hand, as if he knows that I need to be certain that he’s still alive and here with me.
In the midst of the sorrow, the dancers who’ve been trapped in the two cages finally fly free, discovering a new world.
From both corners of the stage, they unite together.
Romeo partners with Cinders.
The audience are whispering again.
This is the first time our packs have danced together.
This is the heart of the ballet, which I’ve long imagined performing.
The one where the dancers break from the cages of both companies and join together.
It’s taken the blood of the principals to heal the feud. But now, change is coming.
Our world will never be the same again.
The dancers pirouette and spin, freed at last.
Mary pulls Thiago to his feet and into the dance as well.
When the music bursts into a jubilant key, both packs gently lift Swan and me onto their shoulders, rising us toward the heavens.
Two new stars are born beside the moon.
Then as the curtains begin to close, the audience burst into wild applause and a standing ovation.
Joy soars through my bond from every single one of my fated mates.
I am reborn.