Chapter 17 His Lady
Chapter seventeen
His Lady
Ivy
The Sunday morning light shone through the windows as I slowly peeled my eyes open. Demetrius’s warm arms held me close to his chest while Preston’s arms held my hips. I couldn’t see Isaac or Lukas, but their scents lingered nearby in the group bedroom.
Last night was a blur of laughter and fun. After dinner, we stayed up late alternating between card games and video games. At some point, I must have fallen asleep in Dem’s arms again, and I’m assuming he carried me to bed. But this time, it wasn't my bed; it was the group bed I found myself in.
I wiggled slightly, adjusting my position to get a better angle for my neck.
Preston kissed me on the forehead before getting up, probably to make breakfast. Isaac quickly took over his spot next to me and wrapped his arms around my waist, tugging me gently to him.
A soft growl rumbled out of Demetrius before he released me into Isaac’s arms and got up out of bed.
Quickly enough, Lukas replaced Demetrius and buried his nose in my hair.
My heart swelled with joy as my eyelids grew heavy again. My pack, I thought as I drifted back to sleep.
***
“Breakfast!”
The faint sound of Preston downstairs brought me back to consciousness. Delicious smells of bacon, eggs, and toast drifted up from the kitchen, forcing me to sit up and stretch. Only Isaac remained beside me; the others had already left.
I pressed a kiss against his lips, which earned me a soft grumble of approval, followed by two arms pulling me closely against his chest.
“Come on, Isaac. Breakfast,” I softly whispered into his ear.
“I’m good,” he grumbled back until eventually he sighed, letting me go and sitting up on the bed.
I couldn’t help but laugh. His hair was all messed up, and his face was covered with lines from the blankets. I grabbed his hand and pulled him up out of bed.
“Let’s go eat!” I said, practically dragging him downstairs to the dining table in front of the beautiful windows.
The rest of the pack was sitting, and soon we were all laughing, joking, talking, and sharing breakfast. After a few minutes of eating, Demetrius cleared his throat to get our attention.
“Ivy, every Sunday morning, we usually chat a bit about pack goals, upcoming events on the calendar, and where we need support in certain areas,” Demetrius said before sipping his juice.
“First, I’d like to say, congratulations, Arco pack.
We’ve officially tricked Ivy into moving in with us, and now she’s ours. ” He shot me a playful wink.
I smiled back at him, shaking my head with a sigh as the guys raised their glasses in celebration.
“How about after lunch, we grab the SUV and pick up the rest of your things at your apartment. Does that work for you?” Demetrius asked me.
With my mouth full of bacon, I gave him the thumbs up, earning snickers from the table.
“Great. Moving on, we need to discuss how to handle this announcement of the Arco pack finding its scent-matched omega.” Demetrius continued. “Lukas, you had originally suggested a slow approach to first introduce her as a dancer in the company.”
“I’ve run bios of all the new dancers on our website and social media pages,” Lukas replied.
“However, rumors are starting to fly around very quickly that we’ve found an omega dancer, even going so far as to identify Ivy.
These rumors are coming from inside the company.
We can’t really silence our own dancers. ”
“What do the ticket sales look like for our upcoming production? Are we seeing additional momentum behind these rumors?” Demetrius asked Lukas.
Lukas checked the ticketing site on his phone. “Wow…we have four of the six shows almost sold out, well above our pace for three weeks out from opening night.” He looked up to Demetrius. “I’d say this is a direct reflection of the rumors.”
“Do we announce Ivy before or after this production?” Isaac leaned in, grabbing an extra piece of fruit.
“Maybe we should use this production as a soft release. Ride out the rumors and let Preston and Ivy’s performances speak for themselves,” Lukas added as he put his phone away. “After this production, we roll out the announcement—bolstered by positive reviews and momentum.”
“That will put us right into Nutcracker season. You want Nutcracker to be our big debut?” Preston asked.
“Nutcracker would be a perfect debut performance, but we’d need to alter it to highlight Ivy and Preston more.” Demetrius shook his head before turning to Isaac. “Can you re-choreograph the lead roles?”
“What kind of Nutcracker does Arco Ballet perform?” I asked. There were so many different versions of the story out there.
Isaac paused for a moment as we all watched him.
“We have the standard story. Clara and her Nutcracker travel to the Kingdom of Sweets, where they meet the Sugar Plum Fairy. We could alter it to just have Clara and her Nutcracker prince become the Sugar Plum Fairy and her cavalier when they arrive in Act Two. I’ve seen that done before. ”
“That would be a grand production to welcome this partnership,” Lukas nodded in approval.
With a sigh, Preston shook his head. “There are currently twenty Nutcracker shows. We can’t dance the lead roles every night. The strain would be too much on our bodies.”
“We’ll alternate you with two of the other principal couples. You two can perform the Arabian duet on your off shows,” Demetrius replied.
“The turnaround time from this show to the next is five weeks,” Isaac added. “Not enough time for me to create a whole new Nutcracker. I have to plan out this stuff at least a year out in advance, plus we don’t have anything budgeted to revamp the production.”
“Start now, and only change the things relevant to Ivy and Preston. Keep everything else the same,” Demetrius suggested. “Use the studio here to work with them. Preston and Ivy have a light rehearsal schedule at the moment. Let’s take advantage of our free time.”
“They have a light schedule, I don’t. I’m still running rehearsals for our current production,” Isaac responded.
“I’ll take over the group rehearsals so you can focus on choreography,” Demetrius suggested as he stretched his arms. “It’ll be nice to get out of my office and work with the dancers anyway.”
Isaac slowly tapped his finger against his chin. “This can work. That takes care of their formal public debut. What about private funders and patrons?”
“I suggest we hold two viewings for our best supporters, along with those we hope to bring into the mix. This needs to happen before our first production. We can announce Ivy to them as a sneak peek of what’s to come.
” Demetrius looked at Preston and me. “What if you two performed that duet from this production, Isaac’s new contemporary piece, and maybe a solo each? ”
I inhaled deeply. It was a lot—not just the private patron viewings, but all of it.
I'd sort of refused to acknowledge up to this point what it meant to be part of a scent-matched omega power couple. But now I was staring down the path towards our announcement, and I was about to jump off a cliff into the unknown.
My throat tightened as my breathing grew shallow. I looked around the table at the expectant faces of my pack.
As if sensing my apprehension, Preston squeezed my hand. “Seems like a lot, doesn’t it?”
I slowly nodded my head, earning a soft smile from him.
“We already know the duet—it’s basically performance-ready.
Isaac’s new piece is coming along and will be ready soon.
We have more than five weeks to rehearse for Nutcracker, and we won’t be bound to just studio hours.
We can rehearse here too, even if it’s just playing the music and talking out the steps without dancing. ”
“Okay,” I said, feeling more reassured.
“I don’t want to cast doubt on any of this. I just want us to be realistic with the timeline.” Lukas looked at all of us. “We’ll have more like four weeks, not five, in between the two productions. We have Ivy’s heat to plan for, too.”
I exhaled loudly, laughing at the whole situation. “Dear god, what did I sign up for?” I glanced back up at all of their faces as looks of doubt and concern started to spread.
Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath and let each of their scents infuse and inspire me. Opening my eyes back up, I felt that spark of determination returning to me. “Yes—we’ve got this. Let’s do it.”
***
After helping with the breakfast dishes, Preston shot me a look and gestured towards the back hallway.
“Class in the studio?”
Agreeing, we both rushed off to change before returning to the studio, where I found Preston stretching on the ground, gently moving his neck around. I held up my dance bag for him and modeled my proper ballet attire. Unlike last week, I actually had shoes and ballet clothes to wear.
“Nice,” he smiled at me. “Ready to get started?”
With a quick thumbs up, I took my place at the barre right behind him, reminding myself not to stare at his exquisitely chiseled bottom during class.
We quickly proceeded through our barre exercises, working up a nice sweat. From there, we moved to the center of the floor to work on some pirouettes, jumps, and extension work.
As we paused for a brief moment to catch our breath, Preston looked over to me. “You’re more than welcome to warm up with me in the second studio during the week.”
“I’ve thought about it.” I paused, wiping the sweat off my forehead. “However, I don’t want to lose my connection to the rest of the company. It’s important I don’t alienate myself from everyone, even if I’m not too popular with some of the dancers.”
“I see. The offer always stands if you change your mind.”