Chapter 11
Chapter
Eleven
M y life shouldn't boil down to the next three hours.
My life should be about more than whether or not I earned a soloist or better spot in the High Lord’s company.
But as I stepped out onto the stage as part of the first small group number, feeling weight in the crowd that was not just Andrei, but an older, stronger presence, I couldn't find it in me to care about balance. Perspective. Any of that other madness.
I was what I was. A dancer. A ballet dancer.
A baby succubus, who needed dance to feed her soul.
There would never be any balance for me, and I didn't care. If someone came along and shattered my kneecaps and I was no longer able to dance, I would question my reason for living.
That made me a little insane. Definitely not entirely healthy.
But I would rather live my life with this all-consuming passion, than live my life empty of the energy derived from having an encompassing, blinding goal.
Samuel, Cora, and I danced together, opening the evening. Interesting choreography, because they were an elegant match, both tall and willowy while I was more petite, my body ripe with packed muscle and curves. But dancing between them I looked doll-like, fragile. A mortal swept away between her two immortal lovers.
Samuel had been tickled pink by the concept, and the makeup and costuming, which took his vibrant attractiveness and made it something underworldly. And Coralene. . .for once she didn't dance as if she was indifferent.
When it mattered, she danced as if it was all consuming to her, as well.
When we left the stage, the crowd erupted in applause. It wasn't the Cassanian way, but during these showcases since the dancers were largely human, human customs were followed.
“Was she watching?” Samuel demanded of Vargas backstage, his voice pitched a little high. “Did she look bored?”
The she, of course, being the High Lord.
“She wasn't bored,” I said.
Samuel turned on me, his nervous energy infectious. Or it would have been, if I was just another human dancer.
“How do you know?” he demanded.
Because I could feel her eyes on me in the crowd.
I could always feel their eyes.
And because while dancing, I'd wrapped my partners in a bit of my mystery, lending them some of my power. If there was one thing taking a bonded who came with an established family group had taught me, it was that with the right people, you were always stronger together than alone.
But they had to be the right people.
“Kawelo,” the stage manager barked when the group numbers were over. “Get ready. Your solo is up next.”
Vargas had placed me towards the end of the lineup. After all the humans and before any of the Cassanian soloists.
The stage went dark, and I stepped forward on silent feet to my mark, contorting my body in the opening position, and waiting for the queue of music.
Around me gray mist began to fill the stage, the backdrop filling with the visuals I'd painstakingly crafted with the set designer.
And the crowd fell quiet.
I tasted their yearning. How anyone could stand in front of them on this stage and not know. . .the need, the pain, the endless hunger searching for something more.
Clawing spirits desperately digging out of a constantly crumbling grave.
I began the first steps of a dance meant to offer solace, a lifeline, a solution if only they would come to me. But they couldn’t come to me. They would die, I would die. Either because my strengthening succubus would overfeed and poison us both or because they would discover what I’d done and howl for my death.
I reached out an arm, brushing against the faintest tip of that mass yearning. Call me. I will come.
Dance with me.
Give me your ? —
No. I couldn’t.
I withdrew, let it be a simple dance even though abandoning them pained me.
Their frustration gnawed at my will. Hearts with no reason to beat, but for these few moments I gave them a reason.
Beat for me.
Drown in the music.
I gave them my sorrow, my ambition, my constant burning determination. My relentless hunger to be more, to do more. But also my pleasure in a hot mug of coffee, and lately—I smiled, thinking of Ashlyun—tea.
The comfort of multiple bodies crowding me in bed, the blanket of quiet breaths and silken drape of hair. The steady affection of smiles and the inverse—the irritation and snapping anger that came with living under the feet of the same people day in and day out.
Inside, I laughed.
The awful, delightful irritation. Because family was supposed to irritate you.
I understood Andrei wanted me to hold back this side of myself, but as I danced I couldn’t entirely ignore the call. It would be like telling me to ignore breath. The day I no longer responded to the plea of a crowd would be the day I died.
This was what I was.
So I danced, and I gave my succubus a little of what she wanted, their life, their energy, their desire. And returned to them my warmth, my passion, my promise that this life still held wonder, and purpose, and majesty.
That there was hope until death, and even then life didn’t truly end, simply transformed. But no matter how dark their days, their souls, they were someone’s light. Someone’s reason.
Live another day. Just one more. It was worth it.
I couldn’t see Andrei through the harsh stage lights, but I looked towards him nonetheless.
Connected. Fed him my energy, filled myself with him. Next to him the strong, formidable feminine presence I shied away from.
Tempting. . .what a meal she would make.
I could drown in her .
But if I did, I would leave my people alone, and I couldn’t do that to them. Couldn’t deprive them of the sustenance I both sipped from them, giving them relief, and the love I offered in return. Though they were Fae, they wouldn’t call it love. They would call it subjugation.
Don’t forget me, I whispered to them. Come to me, and I will be yours.
Come to me, and you will be mine.
I looked towards the High Lord. Choose me, and I will deliver them to you every night.
I will make them love you.
ANDREIEN
“She could be very useful to us,” my mother murmured as the group number ended and Hasannah left the stage with her two partners. “Can she be controlled?”
“She isn't political,” I replied carefully, forcing my fingers to lie still on my thigh.
The group dance had displayed her talent, her joy and heart though she was not the superior technical dancer. Despite that, the eye turned to her time and time again.
She was riveting.
And she’d held back. I knew how my Anah truly danced. I also knew she couldn’t restrain herself indefinitely. Eventually her nature would start to leak out. How much, and how much it would displease my mother, was the question.
“Not political?” Skepticism in Issahelle’s voice. “She's ambitious—that's political enough. Does she love you?”
“That’s almost an impertinent question, my Lord.”
She chuckled under her breath. “And an equally impertinent evasion. Hmm. Of course she loves you. Who wouldn't love Andreien Sahakian? You collect hearts as easily as bees gather honey. The wonder is that most of the hearts you’ve taken as yours remain intact.” She cast me a brief, affectionate glance, though none of it showed on her face. “My gentle son.”
“Her affinity is a weakness,” Mia said, lounging elegantly in her seat. “Take it away and the straw girl will collapse.”
I refrained from snapping at my sister, keeping my voice idle, slightly amused. “Straw, Miahela? My Anah is made of sterner stuff than that.”
They'd learn. I’d enjoy watching. Which reminded me I’d promised Anah to lay in a stock of popping corn. I wasn’t certain if she wanted it for eating, or for making mischief.
I paid only partial attention as the solos began, though when the red-haired girl and pretty dark-skinned boy who belonged to Anah came on stage, I observed them to ascertain what it was in them my bonded clung to. Them, and the wintry pale Ninephene female that Theland was investigating. She danced perfectly, but with no love. An empty vessel. Or she was here for other purposes. She was connected to Ashlyun, and he was charged with hunting down and eradicating Ixnie. Her presence in the Arts at this time was curious.
The theater fell silent as the first notes of ethereal music began, a deep pulsing bass beneath the higher melody. The crowd had quieted at the sound of her name, Hasannah Kawelo, causing me to sigh. She was already known, at least throughout these circles. She’d carried herself with demure aloofness among the nobles earlier, draped in gold, her elegant neck bare to greedy eyes.
If she’d thought to remain quiet and unnoticed, her strategy had backfired. My people loved nothing more than a locked puzzle box to pry open, the more cunning force required the better. Her cool rebuffing of the subtle interest extended her only whet their appetites for challenge.
She unfolded slowly, the tips of her slippered toes pointed exquisitely, her arms arched gracefully over her head as she swayed backwards, then drifted into motion, sheer, scarlet dipped white skirts drifting around her.
Unlike some of the other dancers, she'd chosen music stripped down to minimal, haunting parts, but despite the utter silence in the room, I barely heard the soft thud of her feet when she touched down on the floor. And it was as if she barely touched down, exploding into a wild motion of leaps and spins that somehow thrummed along my spine, each step plucking an internal string that led to the deep well of my power. She was a maelstrom, and she called on mine.
As I watched, awe and dread combining, I felt the subtle tendrils of her power begin to drift through the room.
Darkness damned, Hasannah.
I kept the words strictly in my own mind. Not that she would probably hear me now.
“Ah,” my mother said. “Finally. She likes to tease.”
Lord Issahelle leaned forward; barely a fraction of an inch, but I flinched. Had she moved of her own volition, or would she later determine she’d been answering that siren’s call?
Not a strong call. . .I doubted Anah was even aware of how her succubus nature leaked through her dance; she was trying to control it.
But she couldn’t control it. It would be like asking me not to come when I fucked her. Not to fall another rung deeper in love with her.
We watched her now, and I wondered if she felt our avid gazes or if she completely lost herself inside the dance. Then I thought no more, because though I'd seen her dance before, I'd never seen her dance quite like this.