Chapter 25
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
“Hold still.” Bianca jabs another pin into my updo with the precision of a battlefield surgeon. “If you keep fidgeting, you’re going to look like you fought a rosebush.”
“I’m not fidgeting.”
“You’re vibrating.”
She’s not wrong. Every muscle in my body is wound tight enough to snap, humming with a frequency that probably registers on seismographs three towns over.
I’ve competed in dozens of showcases. Performed in front of panels of stone-faced judges who could destroy a career with a single raised eyebrow.
Danced through twisted ankles, broken ribs, and one memorable performance where I had food poisoning but refused to forfeit.
None of that prepared me for this.
“There.” Bianca steps back, admiring her handiwork. “Perfect. You look like a goddess of dance who also happens to be about to throw up.”
“Helpful.”
“I do what I can.” She squeezes my shoulder. “You’ve got this, Iz. I’ve seen you rehearse. The dance is flawless.”
The dance isn’t the problem, I want to say. But I can’t explain the real stakes to her—not without sounding clinically insane or revealing secrets that aren’t mine to share. So I just nod and try to remember how to breathe.
Through the thin walls of the dressing room, I can hear the murmur of the crowd.
The showcase has been running for two hours now, a parade of ballroom couples and contemporary soloists and one truly inspired jazz ensemble that had the audience cheering.
We’d won the tango contest, but I’d been too busy worrying about the Dance of Accord to really appreciate it.
It’s the final performance of the evening. The grand finale.
No pressure.
The door opens and Mal slips inside, and for a moment I forget how to be nervous because I’m too busy forgetting how to think.
He’s wearing the costume we picked out together—a perfectly tailored black suit with subtle crimson accents that catch the light when he moves.
His hair is styled back from his face, emphasizing the sharp lines of his jaw and cheekbones.
He looks like he stepped out of a gothic romance novel, all dark elegance and dangerous charm.
But it’s his eyes that stop me.
They’re glowing faintly red, visible even in the harsh fluorescent lighting of the dressing room, and there’s something in them I’ve never seen before. Not fear, exactly. Something deeper. Something that makes my chest ache.
“Bianca.” His voice is calm, controlled. “Could you give us a moment?”
She looks between us, clearly sensing the undercurrent of tension, but she doesn’t push. “I’ll be right outside. Don’t mess up her hair.”
The door clicks shut behind her.
He crosses the room in three long strides and pulls me into his arms. I go willingly, pressing my face against the crisp fabric of his jacket and breathing in his smoky, spicy scent.
“He’s here.”
The words are so quiet I almost miss them.
My blood goes cold. “Azrael?”
“Third row, center section. He’s wearing a grey suit and a smile that makes me want to commit violence.”
I pull back just enough to see his face. “Can he do anything? During the dance, I mean. Can he interfere?”
“He shouldn’t be able to. The Dance of Accord is protected by ancient law—even demons can’t directly interrupt it once it begins.” His jaw tightens. “But Azrael has never been one to follow rules he finds inconvenient.”
“Then we’ll just have to be faster than whatever he’s planning.”
He laughs, but there’s an edge to it. “I love that about you. The complete refusal to accept reality.”
“I’m a small business owner in a dying industry. Refusing to accept reality is the only reason I’m still standing.”
He kisses my forehead, gentle and lingering. “Whatever happens out there... I need you to know something.”
“Mal—”
“Let me say this.” His hands come up to frame my face, his thumbs brushing over my cheekbones. “You’ve already saved me, Izzie. The bracelet is complete. The magic is ready. Whether we succeed tonight or not, you gave me something I thought I’d never have again.”
“What?”
“Love.” His voice cracks on the word. “You gave me love. And that’s worth more than any contract.”
I want to tell him that’s not good enough. That I refuse to accept a world where we come this close and still lose. That I’ve spent my entire life settling for almost-good-enough and I’m done accepting anything less than everything.
But before I can speak, there’s a knock at the door.
“Two minutes to places.”
Mal’s arms tighten around me for a heartbeat. Two. Then he releases me and steps back, his expression smoothing into that familiar confident mask.
“Ready to make history?”
I straighten my costume—a flowing dress in deep red that moves like liquid fire when I dance—and meet his eyes.
“Ready to end a three-hundred-year contract?”
“Same thing, really.”
We walk to the wings together.
The stage is dark, but I can sense the crowd beyond the curtain. Hundreds of people who came to see an evening of dance, completely unaware that they’re about to witness something ancient and magical and impossible.
Just another Saturday in Bellamy Cove.
The stage manager catches my eye and holds up five fingers. Then four. Three. Mal takes my hand. Two. I squeeze back. One. The curtain rises.
The first thing I see is Azrael.
He’s exactly where Mal said he’d be—third row center, immaculate in charcoal grey, his silver-blond hair catching the stage lights like a halo. He looks perfectly human. Perfectly ordinary. Just another audience member come to enjoy an evening of culture.
But his eyes are flat and silver and cold, watching us with the patient attention of a predator who knows his prey can’t escape.
I tear my gaze away and focus on Mal. Focus on the dance.
The opening notes of our music fill the theater as we move to opposite sides of the stage. It sounds almost normal, almost conventional, but underneath the surface harmonies there’s something older. Something that makes the air in the theater feel thick with anticipation.
We begin.The first steps are familiar, rehearsed a thousand times until they’re written into my muscle memory. But almost immediately, I feel the difference. This isn’t practice. This isn’t rehearsal. The magic is awake.
It starts in the bracelet—those seven ruby stones pulsing in time with our movements, visible even through Mal’s sleeve. Then it spreads, flowing into me, and suddenly I can feel him. I can feel his emotions, raw and unfiltered, bleeding through the bond the dance is creating between us.
Fear. God, so much fear. Three centuries of servitude and desperate hope and watching every attempt at freedom crumble to dust.
But underneath the fear—love. A love so fierce and overwhelming that my breath catches in my throat. Love that wraps around me like armor, like a promise, like coming home after a lifetime of wandering.
We spin into the second movement, and the music builds.
The magic builds with it. I can see it actually see it now—golden threads of light weaving between us, connecting us, binding us together in ways that transcend the physical.
This is what the Dance of Accord was created for.
Not just partnership, but union. Two souls choosing each other with such completeness that even hell’s contracts can’t argue with the results.
Through the haze of magic, I catch glimpses of the audience.
They’re entranced, leaning forward in their seats, sensing that they’re witnessing something extraordinary even if they can’t explain what.
The judges at the side table have stopped writing notes.
The theater is so quiet I can hear the rustle of individual programs.
And Azrael...
Azrael is standing.
That’s not good.
I see Mal notice too. His grip on me tightens infinitesimally. But we can’t stop. The dance must be completed.
We move into the third section—the most physically and emotionally demanding portion. The surrender to each other. Almost there. The music reaches its crescendo.
And Azrael acts.
It happens so fast that my conscious mind barely registers it.
One moment I’m descending from a lift, Mal’s hands steady on my waist. The next, the temperature in the theater plummets by fifty degrees, and the audience gasps.
The music abruptly cuts off. The stage lights flicker and die, plunging the theater into darkness broken only by the ruby glow of Mal’s bracelet and the silver gleam of Azrael’s eyes.
“Did you really think I would let you succeed?”
Azrael’s voice fills the space, not amplified, but somehow present everywhere at once. It drips with contempt.
“Three hundred years, Malachi. Three hundred years of your pathetic attempts to escape. And you thought this”—the word curls with disgust—”this human woman would be enough to break my hold on you?”
Mal steps in front of me. His glamour is slipping, horns emerging from his dark hair, eyes blazing full crimson.
“The contract is complete, Azrael. The bracelet—”
“The bracelet is irrelevant.” Azrael strides down the center aisle, and with each step, the pressure in the room increases. “The Dance of Accord requires completion. And you, my bound servant, have not completed it.”
He’s right.
The realization hits me like a physical blow. We were in the final section, yes. So close. But the dance wasn’t finished. We didn’t reach the last measures of the music, the closing embrace that would seal the contract’s dissolution.
“This is a violation of ancient law,” Mal growls. “The Dance of Accord is protected—”
“Protected from interference during its performance, yes.” Azrael smiles. It’s the most terrifying thing I’ve ever seen. “But you stopped performing, didn’t you? When the lights died, when the magic faltered... you stopped. And a paused dance is not a protected dance.”
Loophole.
He found a loophole.